The Gospel Coalition

It is interesting to me that when I hear of a title like Eating Animals, I pretty much know the book is going to advocate not eating animals. After all, we don’t eat animals, we eat meat; delicious, delicious meat. And lots of it, at that. The average American will consume 21,000 entire animals during the course of his life. (Do note that this does not necessarily mean 21,000 cows; those tasty little shrimp you eat by the dozen are also whole animals, at least until you bite down) Most of us pretty much assume that the meat we buy from the grocery store began its life not as a cute little animal but as a shrink-wrapped chunk of flesh neatly packaged in a styrofoam container. We prefer our food abstract since that somehow makes it so much less offensive to our urban sensibilities.

Eating Animals is an investigation into meat and, even more, into the meat industry. Here the author, Jonathan Safran Foer, follows a long line of books and documentaries (think The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Food Inc., etc) in seeing how the cute little cow becomes the blob of flesh on the grocery store shelf or the hamburger patty sizzling on the grill.

Not surprisingly, what Foer discovers is shocking, disgusting and degrading. While there is some validity in drawing a distinction between factory farms and family farms, it’s an increasingly meaningless one for the vast majority of our meat, especially if we frequent fast food joints, comes from factory farms. The unfortunate animals who are bred and raised on such farms live in conditions that is utterly appalling. While granting that they are “mere” animals, not distant human ancestors, but life forms designed by God to serve humans, it is nevertheless hard to justify the conditions in which they spend their short lives and, as often as not, the way in which they end their lives. And yet this is the cost of cheap meat. Either we pay or they pay. North Americans want to consume vast amounts of protein and want to pay little for it; factory farms are the only viable solution to this conundrum. Capitalism pretty much dictates it.

Says Foer, “Those factory farmers calculate how close to death they can keep the animals without killing them. That’s the business model. How quickly can they be made to grow, how tightly can they be packed, how much or little can they eat, how sick can they get without dying.” As humans we are commanded by God to have dominion over the earth and all it contains, but to do so as stewards. It is tough for me to see factory farms as any kind of faithful stewardship. To produce all the cheap meat we need, we’ve torn animals from any kind of natural life and turned them into commodities no different than inert ones like coal or lumber. “For thousands of years, farmers took their cues from natural processes. Factory farming considers nature an obstacle to be overcome.” So we fiddle with genetics to create chickens that have lots of high-quality white meat, but which have spindly legs that are easily broken. We feed them food they would never consume in a natural environment and cram them full of antibiotics to ward off the diseases brought about by close confinement. At the end we don’t much care that they live a miserable existence from cradle to grave egg to frying pan. If they’re cheap and tasty we’re content not to ask questions. Somehow this doesn’t seem quite right.

What I like about Eating Animals is that it avoids the PETA-insanity all too common among vegetarians and their evil cousins vegans (seriously, I can understand not eating meat, but life without dairy is unimaginable to me). Foer goes out of his way to sympathize with omnivores and to express his own regard for the tastier of God’s creatures. And while he is now vegetarian (did I just ruin the ending for you?) he came to that decision not by ideology as much as by what he considers necessity. He reminds me a bit of Bart Ehrman who has turned from God but regrets having no one to pray to; Foer has turned from meat but regrets not eating turkey on Thanksgiving. That’s the kind of vegetarian I can identify with.

To this point my #1 takeaway from all of the reading I’ve done as part of this project is this simple lesson: worldview makes all the difference. When we ignore the Bible we can no longer begin our thinking from a consistent dominion perspective. Foer writes well, but he writes from the perspective of an evolutionist (even if a practicing Jewish one). So he does not and cannot state with confidence that God gives us permission to eat meat. The Christian’s conscience should be clear in regards to eating animals; it’s how they become food that is more troublesome to me.

And yet I don’t quite know what to do about it. As I read this book I felt guilty when reading about the conditions of the animals on their factory farms. I felt positively sick reading about the conditions in many of those slaughterhouses. And then I ate a ham and egg sandwich. It was delicious.

Verdict: Read it to spur your thinking about what you eat

Note: In many of the reviews I write I don’t bother mentioning the use of profanity. When you read a book by Ozzy Osbourne you pretty much know what you’re going to get. But I feel like I should mention that when discussing feces Foer prefers the use of a four-letter equivalent. And because there’s so much of that, um, manure in, on and around our meat, well, the word comes up quite often.

Of all the made-for-TV celebrities, I’m not sure that there are many stranger than Duane “Dog” Chapman. He’s a study in opposites: a tough guy who cries, a foul-mouthed dude who quotes Scripture, a family man who has had twelve children by at least five wives. His show, Dog the Bounty Hunter, has developed a strong following, making Chapman a rather unlikely and unusual celebrity.

In 2007 Chapman released his memoir, You Can Run But You Can’t Hide, a book that shot straight onto the New York Times list of bestsellers and sent him on a nationwide book tour. And here, just two years later, is Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given, a second memoir. That seems odd unless you know what has been going on in Dog’s world.

In 2006 Dog was arrested by U.S. Marshalls and very nearly deported to Mexico to face some old kidnapping charges. Near the end of 2007, just as that situation was being resolved in his favor, his son released to the National Enquirer a tape in which Chapman repeatedly used the word “nigger.” The outcry was deafening and resulted in the immediate suspension of production of Dog the Bounty Hunter. Chapman made all of the right apologies and even went on a kind of Apology Tour. After it all, when his penance was complete, the show resumed production and continues in production today. Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given is based around these two episodes. It covers each of them in some detail with occasional intermissions to discuss hunting down a particularly noteworthy criminal. It is, then, an update to the last book and one that gives an adoring audience a further glimpse into the life of their hero.

If you’ve ever seen Dog the Bounty Hunter you’ve undoubtedly noticed that Dog considers himself a Christian, always pausing to pray before a big hunt and often rebuking criminals with words from the Bible. That faith factors significantly in this book. It is full of phrases like this, supposed explanations from Scripture that come with not a shred of understanding of the text’s true meaning: “In the Bible, there’s a verse in Hebrews that says ‘God will give you the shaking that comes on your spirit when things are not right internally.’” Of course in that case I can’t even imagine what text he is referring to. I’ve read and studied Hebrews and I’m quite confident stating that such a verse does not exist, especially when this is the way it manifests itself in a life: “For the first time in years, I was able to catch my breath because I felt I no longer had to worry about my lawyers. In finally felt that I had three lawyers working for me, and that was a good feeling–really good.” In aftermath of the “n-word” controversy Dog says this: “The Bible says ‘the unsaved watch us all the time.’ They’re judging everything we say, do, and whether or not we will live up to the standards they’ve set for us. I have tried to live by my convictions, my morals and values. If you are willing to sacrifice yourself for what you believe in, God will be there, and so I finally had my answer and knew what I had to do.”

This strange brand of mysticism mixed with Christianity pervades the book. He claims to often hear from God, directly and verbally, receiving instructions on what to do, what to say, how to act and react. When he is not quoting (or misquoting) the Bible, Chapman is quoting his hero Tony Robbins. Somehow he misses the contradictory messages of Robbins’ New Age, self-help mysticism and the Bible’s message of faith alone. In this way Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given stands as an example of the kind of spirituality that so often passes for Christianity. It is a buffet line kind of faith, one that takes a little bit of this, adds a dash of that, and combines them all into a strangely muddled whole that may seem satisfying but which has no internal cohesion. It is ultimately a religion that places self in the center and moves God to the periphery. How could it be otherwise when we ourselves stand as the arbiters of what is true and what is not? There is no external standard to look to, no outside authority. Dog has tried to live by his convictions, his morals and his values. But how are we to know whether these are also God’s convictions, morals and values?

One quick aside. When Chapman discusses the fallout from his use of the “n-word” he talks about the role of the smarmy Hollywood spin doctors. There he reveals an interesting fact: that as soon as the news broke, he was told to head to rehab. Never mind that he needed no rehab (exactly what kind of rehab would help in this situation?). When a celebrity makes a major gaffe or is caught in a particularly egregious sin (think Tiger Woods, Mel Gibson, etc) the first thing they do is head to rehab. Chapman reveals that this is usually not because they seriously believe they need any rehab but, rather, because the public is then quick to forgive them. As soon as we see that there is a therapeutic answer to their problem we assume that there is also a therapeutic reason for it. And then we are quick to forgive and forget and that celebrity can exit rehab and move on with his life. After all, it’s not really his fault. It’s all a big scam. I think we already know this, but it is interesting to hear it from the mouth of just that kind of celebrity (and, to his credit, one who refused to play that particular game).

Dog is fantastically entertaining; there is no doubt about that. There is something comical about watching him bash down doors with nothing but a can of mace in his hand; something funny about him treasuring his bounty hunter badge as if it is a sign of any true authority; something bizarre about the whole nature of his business in which he bails people out and then makes himself rich and famous by capturing them again. As we Canadians are so fond of saying, “Only in America…”

Verdict: Read it if you just can’t get enough of the Dog. But if that’s the case, honestly, you may need to find a hobby or get out more often or something!

After back-to-back weeks of six new titles added to the list of bestsellers, I am glad to see my workload eased a little this week. There are three new titles this week with a couple of others charging hard behind them, ready to hit the list next week.

Straight to the top is The Big Short by Michael Lewis of The Blind Side fame. He writes about the people who saw the real estate crash coming and made billions from their foresight. It sounds like his book will resemble several others that have already found their way to the list this year. Lewis is quite a good writer and I’m looking forward to reading this one.

Far down the list at #13 is Lies the Government Told You by Andrew Napolitano. Interestingly, the book is published by Thomas Nelson, making that two Nelson titles on the list (along with Son of Hamas). Napolitano writes about the deterioration of American freedom.

And squeaking in at #15 is Duane “Dog” Chapman’s Where Mercy is Shown, Mercy Is Given. He released a bestselling memoir just a couple of years ago, so I suppose this one must either be a retelling of that memoir (unlikely) or an update of his story over the past two or three years (more likely). I’m guessing his well-publicized use of the “n-word” will feature prominently.

I managed to read only three of last week’s books, leaving me at least 6 or 7 titles behind starting the new week. I’m going to have to hope for some merciful slow weeks on the list to have a hope of catching up in the near future. I’m still working my way through Mitt Romney’s book and am quite enjoying Eating Animals–more than I would have thought at any rate.

My family used to watch that old show Unsolved Mysteries. I always hated it. Though I couldn’t deny there was a bit of an attraction in learning about these strange mysteries no one has ever been able to solve, I was always frustrated by that very reality–that we couldn’t solve them. There were no answers in the show, only questions. Big questions, interesting questions, questions I really wanted answers to, but questions that remained a mystery. This is one reason I dislike conspiracy theories. Sure it is interesting to speculate on what realities hide behind what we assume is true, but in most cases we will never know otherwise. And I find that supremely frustrating.

Not so Jesse Ventura. Former professional wrestler, former Governor of Minnesota, and now professional conspiracy theorist (for TruTV’s Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura), he loves them. And he sees them everywhere. American Conspiracies is his attempt to bring to light some of the most prominent conspiracies in American political history.

Now it’s a strange truism that when you go looking for conspiracies, you tend to find them. After all, life is rarely entirely free from gray areas. Always there are strange shades of gray between what is evident and what is hidden. And it is alluring to think about that space between, to wonder what might have happened in them. I have heard of the term pareidolia in this context. It refers to “a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct.” Go looking for those conspiracies and before long you will inevitably find evidence to back them up. And this is exactly what we see in American Conspiracies.

Ventura begins with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, saying that it is likely that there were more people involved in the plot than just the few who were rounded up. He points to conspiracy as well in the fact that most children learn only about John Wilkes Booth and not the other conspirators. This is quite a stretch for a conspiracy; some history books may simplify by pointing only to Booth but I don’t know of anyone who would suggest that the few people punished for the crime were the only ones involved.

After rather a weak start with Lincoln, Ventura turns to FDR (an attempted coup to overthrow him and establish a fascist nation), JFK (the CIA did it), Malcolm X (the CIA and the mob did it), Martin Luther King, Jr. (the mob, the military and some crazy right wingers did it), RFK (CIA again), Watergate (the CIA set him up–they’ve been busy), the Jonestown Massacre (you guessed it–the CIA again). You get the idea. The CIA is also running drugs, shipping them to the US in the bodies of dead soldiers. The Republicans stole the elections in 2000 and 2004 and came exceedingly close to doing so again in 2008. And, of course, 9/11 was either an inside job or a massive cover-up in which the Bush Administration either knew about the plan or allowed it to proceed to further their own ends. The buildings were dropped not by the planes but by carefully-placed and precision-timed explosions. You’ve heard it all before.

As is always the case with such theories, Ventura offers evidence that often seems compelling. But of course evidence is always compelling when it is presented in isolation. He makes his case for each of these and often the evidence seems to be there. But walk away for a few minutes, think it through, and you’ll quickly see that the conspiracies are often more muddled than the truth.

I’m not so naive as to think that the world as we see it through the mouth of the government and through the lens of the media is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Clearly there is a lot that we, the ordinary, unremarkable people who comprise 99.99% of the population, don’t know and never will know. I know that Satan rules this world and that there are power structures and power struggles that happen far beyond what we see and experience. There is no doubt in my mind that the world is not always what it appears to be. And yet neither am I convinced that reality according to Ventura is any closer to the truth.

Ventura has always been an entertainer. In his heyday he traveled the world tearing the town apart and entertaining millions. His job was to create a story that was pseudo-believable but entirely entertaining. He was good at it then and he is good at it still. Here he rehashes conspiracies that have been debated for years or decades. He introduces little that is new; little that has any measure of credibility. It’s conspiratorial, it’s hard to believe, but at least it’s plenty entertaining.

Verdict: Read it if you love yourself a conspiracy theory.

Lift is a tiny book, so just to be different, I’ll give it a tiny review.

Written as a letter from a mother to her two children, Lift clearly coasts onto the bestseller list on the success of author Kelly Corrigan’s previous title The Middle Places. Lift is not a bad book; rather, it’s just mostly unremarkable. Sure there is a certain sweetness to it as an adoring mother writes to her little girls. But if it is meant to be tender and sweet, then why does she at one point indulge in a streak of ugly, harsh profanity? And if it is written to be pro-family, then why does she include a lengthy section defending homosexual marriage? And if she really wants her daughters to love their parents, why does she subtly belittle her husband so often?

So truly it’s not that Lift is an objectively bad book. It’s more that I just don’t quite understand the point of it. I can see that her daughters will someday treasure it; and I can see that it will make a nice family heirloom. But I don’t quite understand why the rest of us have been invited to read it with them.

The book has poignant moments; moments that any parent can identify with. But those are their moments, not ours. I think they would have been better off if left that way.

Verdict: Read it if you loved The Middle Places

Well, I need to either begin or end the review with these words, so let’s get it out of the way right off the top: The Pacific just isn’t as good as Band of Brothers. It is an easy but inevitable comparison. As The Pacific finds its way to television screens in the form of a ten-part mini-series, it also makes its way to store shelves (and to the list of bestsellers) as a book. Written by Hugh Ambrose, son of Stephen Ambrose (who wrote Band of Brothers), it landed on the list just days before the airing of the first episode.

Now, I know that it may be unfair to immediately draw comparisons between the two but really it is inevitable. The publisher knew this, putting the words Band of Brothers right on the cover of The Pacific. If they can sell it to us on that basis, I think we are free to evaluate on that same basis.

Band of Brothers rose or fell on the strength of its characters and the growing (and declining) relationships between them. It was tightly focused on one small group of soldiers–E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne. It followed these men from boot camp all the way to the end of the Second World War. In men like Major Dick Winters it had heroes and in men like Captain Herbert Sobel it had villains. It was a fascinating story that was well-told and easily adapted into a fantastic mini-series. The Pacific, on the other hand, began as the mini-series rather than the book. Based on two famous Second World War memoirs–With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge and Helmet for a Pillow by Robert Leckie–the mini-series is a product of the same team that brought us Band of Brothers. Through one episode it shows great promise.

The book is a companion or an add-on to the series. It ranges much farther than Band of Brothers ever did, focusing on soldiers from different branches of the military–Army, Navy and Marines. It focuses on men who never encountered one another during the war. Therefore, it does not have the interplay and fraternity between the characters that helped make Band of Brothers what it was. Instead of the relationship between characters, we find tension between telling the story of the war and telling the story of individual soldiers and airmen within that war.

So, for example, Ambrose is constantly switching between what people actually did and saw and what they might have done and might have seen. In one sentence he’ll say, “He dove into the trench, cutting his foot on a jagged piece of shrapnel” and then follow it by saying, “He might have noticed the smoke from the explosion.” Ambrose continually switches back and forth between what the soldier actually saw, as recorded in his memoirs, and what he might have seen based on the historical record. Though it may seem like a small thing, I found it quite maddening as it showed to me that The Pacific doesn’t know what it wants to be–history or biography. In the end it becomes a bit of both but does neither with the excellent of Band of Brothers.

Is The Pacific a bad book? No, not at all. There is a lot to gain from it both in terms of history and in terms of learning about individual soldiers. At the same time, I just can’t help but feel that it’s not all it could be; that it was a rush job and one that lacks precision and focus. I wanted more of the men and less of the facts. I wanted to feel about the men in this book like I felt about Winters and Sobel and Guarnere and like I’m sure I’ll feel about the men in The Pacific mini-series. After all, the series has already shown that it will be more about the soldiers and less about the big picture of the war.

So here is my advice. If you have not read With the Old Breed, read that first. You owe it to yourself. It is one of the best books you’ll read on the Second World War. Then, if your appetite for reading about the war and about the Pacific campaign still remains, go ahead and read The Pacific. You will encounter Sledge again, but you will also encounter another set of characters that are worth meeting.

Verdict: Read it if you’re a World War II enthusiast and if you’ve already read With the Old Breed.

Oh my. Last week saw six new books added to the list of bestsellers. I managed to read four of them and to review three. That left me with two pretty thick books on my reading list (The Pacific and No Apology) heading into the weekend. And then I saw the New York Times list of bestsellers for this week and was somewhat shocked to see another five books added to it.

Going straight to the top is Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, by Chelsea Handler. The book is a collection of essays by Handler, a comedian. I’m a mite concerned it’s going to be an ugly read. But we shall see.

Start out at #2 is Courage and Consequence by Karl Rove. The book gives President George W. Bush’s senior adviser and deputy chief of staff an opportunity to explain why he did what he did during his years serving the President.

At the #3 spot is Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen. The one-line description goes like this: :”Using the brain-body connection to lose weight and avoid depression.” Can’t say that I’m particularly looking forward to reading that one.

New at #6 is Jesse Ventura’s American Conspiracies. “The former Minnesota governor questions the official explanation of events like the Kennedy assassination and 9/11.” At the very least it ought to be interesting.

And way down at #15 is Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I do believe Foer, a novelist, is going to try to convince me not to eat any of those delicious, delicious animals that I so enjoy. I don’t like his chances, though lately, just for sake of variety, I’ve been eating vegetarian quite regularly.

And there we have it. Five new books added which brings my “to read” list up to seven titles. Interestingly, most of this week’s titles are not available in Kindle format. It seems to me that many publishers are treating the Kindle format a bit like paperbacks, allowing the hardcover to stay in print for a while before bringing out the Kindle version. I suppose there must still be more money in hardcover than in e-books.

In 1999 Harry Markopolos was a small-time number cruncher at a Boston firm; he was tasked with analyzing investment products. One day he was handed a prospectus outlining Bernie Madoff’s strategy and stellar results and asked to create a similar product. Very quickly he realized that such returns, consistent through good times and bad, peaks and valleys, were impossible under normal circumstances. Either Madoff had knowledge of the future or he was involved in some kind of a scam. The numbers do not and cannot lie.

Markopolos knew that Bernie Madoff was a fraud. He knew it in 1999, fully ten years before Madoff’s Ponzi scheme collapsed, evaporating some $40 billion. For years he tried to make the Securities and Exchange Commission aware of what he knew, but he was met only with resistance. The SEC turned him away time and again. And over the years, Madoff’s fraud grew by tens of billions. Finally, in the closing days of 2008 when Madoff’s empire collapsed, Markopolos was vindicated, finally able to say a well-earned, “I told you so!” No One Would Listen is the story of his long battle to expose Madoff.

The power of this book is not in exposing who Madoff was or what he was doing. That is all well known by now. Rather, the book’s force is in exposing the gross negligence and incompetence of the SEC and, further, in exposing the systemic greed that allowed Madoff to prosper for so long.

What may be most surprising and what may be the greatest statement about human nature is that most of Madoff’s clients, the big corporate ones at least, knew that he was a fraud. They knew that he was in some way gaming the system. Yet as long as he was doing so for their benefit, they were not going to complain. Most thought he was front-running; therefore, though he was cheating and would eventually be caught, their money would be returned to them and in the meantime they would enjoy great returns. None of them understood that he was running a Ponzi scheme which would return them nothing. So it was not just Madoff’s corruption and greed that cost investors billions; it was their own greed and lack of ethics. No one would listen because no one wanted to listen.

For years Markopolos lived in fear of Bernie Madoff, convinced that, because of his crusade against him, he was a marked man. He slept with a gun by his side and picked up a concealed weapon permit. He constantly thought back to his military training, figuring out how he would escape from a hail of bullets. He got into the habit of looking under his car for hidden bombs and spent a great deal of money upgrading his home alarm system. Yet beyond a single incident of a car tailing him for a short time he had no evidence that anyone was out to get him. He lived in a fear that seems to have been fueled primarily by his own imagination. And no sooner had Madoff fallen then Markopolos loaded up his shotgun, convinced that the SEC was now going to invade his home (do they have an accounting SWAT team?).

The whole book is tinged with this bizarre altered reality. Markopolos clearly has a lively imagination and an inflated sense of his own importance. Throughout the book he shows that he can do his own job well and that he is convinced that he can do everyone else’s job just as well–certainly better than they can do it themselves. Time and again he offers not just facts, but opinion and judgment. Read through some of his submissions to the SEC and you can see why they were ignored–they are full of self-importance, demands for bounties and snide comments about how the SEC needs to do its job better. Though we cannot excuse their negligence, we can hardly fault them for regarding Markopolos with some suspicion.

To call No One Would Listen a thriller, as the subtitle does, is quite a stretch. Yes, the book is interesting enough, but it is only a thriller in Markopolos’ own imagination (or in the creative mind of a marketer). It’s actually rather a plodding tale that goes into great detail about financial transactions that are well outside the experience of most of us. Wall Street jargon pervades its pages. The value of the book, at least in my mind, is not in the tale of one man crusading against a massive fraud. Rather, it is the harsh reality that Madoff thrived only because so many of his biggest customers wanted him to. His scheme would never have grown so large without these corporate customers. They knew, or at least suspected, that he was corrupt, but as long as his corruption fed their bank accounts, they were willing to overlook it. It was only when his corruption caused their accounts to evaporate that they grew incensed. They eventually paid the price for their greed.

Verdict: Read it to see a clear example of the hard cost of greed.

On February 28, 2009 four men left Clearwater Pass on what was supposed to be a day-long fishing expedition. On board were two football players, Corey Smith and Marquis Cooper, along with their personal trainer Nick Schuyler and Schuyler’s friend Will Bleakley. The next day the Coast Guard reported that the boat and all on-board were missing. The day after that Schuyler was found clinging to the hull of the overturned boat; all of the other men had either drowned or had succumbed to hypothermia. An investigation into the incident showed that the boat had flipped when Cooper, an experienced boater, had tried to dislodge a stuck anchor by gunning the motor. Though the men were thrown clear, they had sent no distress signal and had not told anyone where they were going to fish. It took almost 48 hours for the Coast Guard to find them.

Not Without Hope is Nick Schuyler’s description of the incident. It is a survival story, the kind of tale we’d expect to find in condensed form in Reader’s Digest in a year or two. He describes the circumstances surrounding the fishing trip and describes in agonizing detail the deaths of his three friends including his best friend, Will Bleakley.

Let me say off the top that the book is not particularly well written. Actually, it’s downright poor at times. Here’s a sampling of the prose:

I caught my first fish and I was like, oh my God, forget this. I was so confused. Why would anybody like this? It took me almost fifteen minutes to get the damn fish up. A big amberjack. As soon as I made a little leeway, it yanked out everything I had reeled in. It fought like a shark. My back and shoulders were burning. I kind of wedged the pole between my legs and told Marquis, “I’m taking a little break.” I couldn’t imagine anyone pulling up a giant marlin or something.

Or, a short time later:

He played in thirty-four games during his career, starting eight times at tight end and catching ten passes. I think he made honorable mention at All-Big East Conference his senior year. He was clever at chop blocking. His parents, Bob and Betty, were at the games, always.

It’s not the worst prose I’ve read–not by a long shot–but it’s still pretty bad. Certainly it’s about the worst I’ve encountered on the bestseller’s list. But I suppose it may be fitting for the person who wrote the book, a self-proclaimed jock more than an intellectual, a guy who, when rescued, looked in the mirror, noticed that his body fat had obviously fallen and thought, “not bad.”

Like you, I’ve often heard it said that there are no atheists in a foxhole. The same must be true when floating helplessly in the ocean. Though the men who set out that day were varyingly religious, it seems that none of them were particularly devout. And yet no sooner had the boat flipped and the storm winds risen than the men were crying out to God individually and communally, even reciting the Lord’s Prayer together. Schuyler, who makes it clear that he had no relationship with God whatsoever, was soon begging for his life saying, “Please, God, I’ll start going to church every Sunday.” He and his friends called out to God for deliverance. Only Nick survived. And in the aftermath he writes, “I’ve gotten so many e-mails and calls and text messages saying, ‘God has a plan for you, stay strong, you may not see it now.’ I kind of see it both ways. I hope so, but why didn’t God have a plan for these guys as good as they were? Why did He choose me out of the four?” Though he pledged allegiance to God during the hours of terror, it seems that he soon forgot his promises and has moved on. Though he cried out to God for rescue while he was helpless, now he regards that same God as culpable for the accident.

Reading this book I wonder why it is that we are so drawn to stories of survival. And honestly, there a few good reasons to read this book; it has little to commend it beyond the tale of disaster and survival. It’s poorly written and contains a cast of mostly unremarkable characters. And yet it has sold well enough that it has made its mark on the list of bestsellers. Somehow this tale of terror, this “drama in real life” (to borrow a phrase from Reader’s Digest) electrifies readers and draws them in. I’m not sure why we are so drawn to such tales. Perhaps we have imagined ourselves in such situations and are interested to see how others respond in their most difficult moments. Or maybe we want to imagine that we would do so much better–that if we had been there, we would have had the strength or ingenuity to rescue ourselves or to save the lives of our friends. There is something about such stories that we find almost irresistible.

Yet as stories of survival go, this one is just okay. It’s certainly no better than average and I see little reason to recommend it.

Verdict: Read it if you just have to read a survival story.

(You’ll have to excuse the rare double post between 10MillionWords and my blog. This book perfectly fit both sites)

From his earliest days, Mosab Hasson Yousef had a view of the inner workings of Hamas. The son of one its founders, from childhood he was immersed in the shadowy world of Middle Eastern terror and politics. Arrested time and again by the Shin Bet, the Israeli internal intelligence service, he eventually made the decision to become a double agent, working for Israel instead of against her. For ten years, from 1997 to 2007, he lived like this, deeply embedded within Hamas, suspected by no one, yet passing vast amounts of information to Israel. In this way he prevented assassinations, stopped suicide attacks and provided information leading to the arrests or killings of many terrorists. He was Shin Bet’s most valuable source of information about Hamas.

In 1999 he had a chance encounter with a British visitor who invited Yousef to learn about the Christian faith. Curious and intelligent, Yousef took this opportunity and was immediately struck by the difference between Jesus Christ and Mohammed, between the Christian faith and the Islam he had inherited from his fathers. In the months that followed he made a slow conversion to Christianity and was quietly baptized.

Eventually Yousef grew tired of his double life and convinced the Israelis to release him from his position with them. With some reluctence they agreed and allowed him to move to the United States where he continues to live today. Son of Hamas is the story of his life, “A gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices,” according to the rather verbose subtitle.

And it’s a good story that is told well. Yousef offers a uniquely interesting perspective on Hamas and on the political background and context in that area of the world. His story involves just enough action and intrigue to keep it interesting. At times it is almost (but not quite) unbelievable.

One thing I found interesting is that Youself reveals the Israelis not as the good guys but as the less-bad guys. He develops some level of respect for them when he sees that they are fighting for their lives against a host of nations bent on their destruction. But still he shows how they are every bit as willing as the surrounding nations to torture and kill to further their own ends. Their respect for life is not much greater than that of their enemies. So the Israelis really are not the good guys in this story.

And of course I enjoyed reading not just of Yousef’s conversion to Christianity but also the long process and the inner turmoil that got him there. It was only through much soul-searching that he was able to see Jesus Christ not just as a prophet but as the Son of God who died for the sin of the world. So often I read books like this and am disappointed to see that the author finds joy in everything but Christ. But here Yousef finds rest and joy and peace only when he submits his life to Christ.

Yousef does not want to be a hero to Christians. At the end of the book he admits his own unsuitability for that task. He is a new Christian and one who is unskilled–still a novice. And yet he is one who has now written a book about his conversion that has landed on the New York Times list of bestsellers. His testimony is powerful and I both hope and expect that God will use it to show others the light that can be theirs if they turn to Christ.

This one is well worth reading. Buy a copy and marvel at God’s grace. Marvel at how God will go to great lengths to draw his people to himself.

Verdict: Buy it and rejoice in the grace of God.