Heroes by one of my heroes--Iain Murray

Stories of Great Christian Preachers and Servants

 It’s fun to imagine having a meal with some of your heroes and favorite figures from history. In my case, the dinner party would include hundreds of guests ranging from famous leaders and generals, authors of classics, teachers and professors, and pastors and theologians. Such a gathering would overwhelm my senses. I would not know whether to sit with the poets and novelists, the historians, the generals, the U.S. Presidents, the country music singers, or just sit between Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.

Such a gathering is fun to imagine, but not possible. What would be possible would be to have a meal sitting between two of my living heroes. Both are authors, both British, and both could talk about a favorite subject of mine: Heroes. Both men have actually written books, somewhat different books, that have the same title: Heroes. And both men, whose hero lists are different, have as heroes some of my own heroes.

The two authors are Iain Murray and Paul Johnson. It would seem quite necessary for me to be placed between them, for I don’t know how well they might get along. On the one hand, both are prolific writers. I have read about ten books of each of them, but have not read all either has written. They have both written about history and historical figures. And they have both written books from a decidedly religious, more specifically Christian perspectives. And both men are still mentally and physically active, although they are in their eighties. Both are undoubtedly filled with many anecdotes of the people they have known and written about. Still, I am not sure how cordial the conversation might be.

Like the character named Delmar in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?, when Murray and Johnson disagree, I would cast the deciding vote by saying, “I agree with you two fellers.” In many cases, I must add that I would probably be much more in sync with the thinking of Murray than Johnson. That can be explained as we go.

Iain Murray has been a pastor and author since the 1950s. His larger ministry really centers around the founding of the Banner of Truth Trust in 1957. The Banner of Truth has published a theological magazine since those founding days and has published or reprinting hundreds of Christian books from the Reformed and Puritan perspective. Banner has created both an awareness of the Puritan tradition and a practical application of Puritan theology in Christian life. Whereas Perry Miller is credited with reawakening the academic community of the importance of studying the Puritans (particularly those who migrated to the American colonies), Iain Murray, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, J.I. Packer, S.M. Houghton, and other British Christians of the mid-twentieth century, reawakened evangelical Christianity to the Puritan heritage.

For Murray and his associates, the Puritan era was not an economic or social interest. (For British historian and Marxist, Christopher Hill, it was exactly that.) Neither were the Banner folks focused on the political impact of the Puritans. (For the Reconstructionists of the 1970s and 1980s, this was a major concern.) Rather, it was Puritan doctrinal thinking and practical Christian piety. And the interest of the Banner of Truth ranged beyond just an era of English history, for Puritanism was connected to the events and leaders of the Protestant Reformation that preceded Puritanism and was also connected with events in Scotland and the United States (both in the colonial and early nationhood eras), and the heritage of the Puritans re-emerged in the Methodist revival of the mid-1700s and in the pastoral ministries of later British ministers, such as Charles Spurgeon, J.C. Ryle, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

The range of Murray’s books testify to his interests and the causes which he has championed. Two of his earlier books are The Forgotten Spurgeon, which was a call for reexamining the Calvinistic theology of the still frequently read Baptist of the late 1800s, and The Puritan Hope, which was both a history of Puritan beliefs concerning eschatology (last things) and a call for re-examining a postmillennial approach to the Scriptures. Others of his books include biographies of Arthur Pink (twentieth century Calvinist Baptist author), John Murray (twentieth century Presbyterian theologian), Martyn Lloyd-Jones (incredibly important 20th century pastor and writer), and Jonathan Edward (colonial American theologian, author, and pastor). He also has written about Christianity in Australia and Scotland. Other books covered concerns about theological liberalism, modern revivalism, and the influence of John Wesley. Murray, a staunch Calvinist, is quite generous in his appreciation for Wesley and the Methodist movement.

His book Heroes, published by Banner of Truth in 2009, grew out of talks and shorter articles about some of his favorite Christians of the past. Ever the preacher and exhorter, Murray is not content to simply give the biographical details of his subjects’ lives. He gives practical lessons to be followed by Christians today. For him, history is not merely interesting stories of the past or an academic discipline; rather, it is moral philosophy. History teaches. We learn and are helped, or we ignore it and suffer.

Murray’s heroes include such famous men of Christian history as Jonathan Edwards (summarizing and building upon his book of some years earlier), George Whitefield, John Newton, and Charles Spurgeon. He also included lesser known Christians, such as Thomas Charles of Bala, the missionaries William H. Hewitson and Robert Reid Kalley, and the Charles and Mary Colcock Jones family of ante-bellum Georgia. In every case, Murray had particular themes to draw out of each of these Christian lives and their ministries. In the case of the Jones family, for example, he discussed the efforts of that family to minister to slaves in the old South.

As a history teacher, I found these biographical sketches useful. Whether it was British missionary efforts or life in early America, the men of those times exemplify the issues of the time. But biographical details can be easily picked up in encyclopedias or the more handily accessible Internet. What the history resources cannot give is the soul stirring nurture of Murray’s heroes. This book rekindled a love of Calvinistic piety and evangelism. The Reformed faith is rich and multifaceted. Sometimes, as a school administrator and teacher, my emphasis is on the worldview thinking in all subject areas and Reformation heritage in history. Calvinism can appear, distortedly yet frequently, as being all head and no heart. Murray is not promoting an emotion-centered faith, but rather an eminently pious and heart-felt Christianity that is nurtured through sound theological preaching and solid books.

His heroes were, quite often, men of books. Murray’s labors, his efforts to emulate his heroes, has been to fast track young Christians toward spiritual maturity through an acquaintance with the riches of the past. As he notes in a quotation from Thomas Fuller:

History maketh a young man to be old, without either wrinkles or grey hairs; privileging him with the experience of age, without either the infirmities or inconveniences thereof.

Even those of us who do know wrinkles, grey hair, and infirmities, can still profit from Murray’s beloved heroes.

Author and Historian Iain Murray

Ancient Highway by Bret Lott

Christian Novelist Bret Lott's Ancient Highway

A Modern Christian Novel: A Review of Ancient Highway by Bret Lott

"That’s why I did it. Because I need to know what a life that was real really felt like. Asking forgiveness was about the most real thing I figured I could ever know."

The cost was incredibly cheap, $1 for a new hardback copy off the sale tray, but the treasure is great. Sometimes we get what we pay for, and then sometimes, we experience a great blessing for a small price. Any book buyer and reader knows the experience. For me, it has happened in a grand way in reading and finishing Ancient Highway by Bret Lott.

The reviews I read convinced me to give the book a try. As is often the case, the first chapter or two did not convince me. Halfway through the book, I was into the story, and was vicariously present in the action of the last portions of the story.

What impressed me about this book is that it portrays a Christian vision of reality. Christian fiction can be done in ways that are both faithful and artistically bad. While there is nothing wrong with portraying a “typical” conversion of a bad character, that is not necessarily art or literature. The Pevensee kids living in England could have learned of Christ’s atonement in a Sunday school class rather than in finding themselves in Narnia. I suspect a back and forth dialog over the catechism rather than a battle for Narnia would have left Lewis quite forgotten in our time (assuming for the sake of argument we didn’t have his other unforgettable works).

Some Christian artists, notably Flannery O’Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky, understood the role of the Christian writer in portraying salvation. Image, symbol, and subtlety couched with restraint are all necessary for the artistic portrayal of God’s grace. This is not to say that a writer cannot have an overt conversion experience or explicit spiritual awakening. Neither O’Connor nor Dostoevsky left it ambiguous what was happening in the soul of their characters. Such masters of the art often make the art look too easy. Hence the many poor imitators.

Bret Lott is a masterful imitator of good fiction. This story deals with the search for a real story, a real life. The main character, Earl Holmes, looks for fulfillment in Hollywood, in a hoped for career in “the flickers.” Not only is Hollywood a powerful metaphor for the emptiness of life, but the word “flickers” aptly captures the non-life posing as life that we witness on the screen.

Earl’s obsession with film success destroyed his marriage and family. He had lived such a phony life that even those who knew him best and loved him were never sure whether he was telling the truth or telling lies about his life. His grandson, Brad, was, like many modern Americans, a dysfunctional child of a loveless mother and an absent father.

While on a navy ship that was carrying Vietnamese refugees, Brad, however, witnessed something he had never personally experienced. He saw a Vietnamese family sitting together, laughing, and sharing their love. They had nothing, for they were refugees. In fact, they had less than nothing. The son had lost an arm and the father had lost an eye, presumably as a result of the war. Looking up at Brad, who was leaning over from a higher position in the ship, they thanked him for their rescue.

Brad’s view of life, apart from this epiphany, was that life was nothing more or better than sex and drugs. He had run away from his mother, who had in turn, run away from her parents, Earl and Saralee. Earl had himself run away from his rather pitiful home in Texas. But the story is of these family breakages being slowly restored. After his stint in the navy, Brad moves in with his grandparents. Providentially, Brad becomes the one who is in the position to bring the family together.

At a sale day, when Brad and his grandfather are marketing his grandfather’s homemade caftans, Brad meets some genuine Christians. The witness to Brad, and in the book, is subdued. Brad is stunned by meeting a man who both knows the Bible and the various translations of Homer's Iliad. This man’s wife, suffering from cancer and cancer treatments, likewise is a powerful, but subtle witness to the whole family. Her prayers, along with her husband’s words (preaching) work to bring unity to a broken family made up of severely broken people.

Ancient Highway describes people who are very unlike me in their lives and careers. Yet the book has a searing mirror quality. The phony nature of Hollywood, the unreal “reality” of flickers, the posturing of actors and would-be actors are all things that are found not just on the grounds of MGM Studios, but are found in the human heart. Faulkner’s recurring theme of “the human heart in conflict with itself” is the essence of much, or all, great literature. It is the theme of Bret Lott’s great novel.

I have now read several works by Bret Lott
 and hope to collect and read all his works.

Happy Eightieth Birthday to a Superstar

One of the all-time great Country Music Stars--George Jones

George Jones celebrates his 80th birthday on September 12, 2011

Not many legends are still around. Johnny Cash, Porter Waggoner, Bill Monroe, and Patsy Cline are all gone. Elvis has been gone a long while, and old old Hank, Marty, and Lefty even longer. Thankfully, we still have George Jones and Ralph Stanley. (There are others no doubt.) God has been good to George Jones, even though Jones, just like every one of us, has not always been very good toward God.

Jones's drinking songs, like his songs about heartbreak, blues, and dejection, are born out of his many miserable experiences. He has suffered from alcohol use and abuse, broken marriages, and at least one major wreck that should have ended it all. As he says in one song, "from the blood from my body I could start my own still."
Just as those two great William's, Shakespeare and Faulkner, plummeted the depths of human tragedy and woes via their dramas and novels, so Jones has revealed the pain, misery, and struggles of man's failed efforts to find perfect bliss in this vale of tears.  Continue Reading

Rome and America



A good comparative study of Rome and America

One of the books I am slowly plugging along at reading is Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America by Cullen Murphy.  This bargain book from Books-A-Million has been a thought provoking study that is helpful to me for two of this year's courses I am teaching.  On the one hand, I am teaching a course on American Government, and along with that, I am teaching on the Ancient World in Humanities.  It will be the second semester before we get to Rome, but this book is chocked full of anecdotes and snippets about Rome's expansive government and imperial overreach.  Parallels between the Roman foibles and American policies are extensively described.

I was wryly amused at the following quote (down below) about the Roman government.  In our own time, with so many government actions and words that are irrelevant at best and all too often harmful, it is painfully comforting to know that political incompetence has been around for quite a while.

"In 476 A.D., not long after the last emperor was deposed and the empire in the West had come to an end, the Roman Senate ordered new coins to be struck. The coins bore the legend 'Roma Invicta'--'Rome Unconquered.'"

Current Readings Include



Still Applicable to the 21st Century

I first read this book by the recently deceased John R. W. Stott about 20 years ago.  I am realizing that I should have been re-reading this book every few years.  I hope to read lots more by Stott in order to grow spiritually, and for now, this is a good place to return to.



Short Survey of Ancient History

Most of Norman Cantor's historical writings are about Medieval history.  This fairly concise work (a bit over 200 pages) is a useful survey of Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, and Romans.  This is a good refresher course for me in my work on Ancient World Humanities.



Pulitizer Prize Winning Biography

On some evenings when I have a bit of time, I knock out a few pages of Ron Chernow's recent biography of George Washington.  Having read quite a few works on Washington, including those of James Flexner Thomas, Joseph Ellis, Paul Johnson, David Hackett Fischer, and Thomas Fleming, I can never quite get my fill of that man's strengths and perseverance.  At the current reading rate, I should finish this book sometime before Christmas...2020.