I remember hearing about Gracia and Martin Burnham in 2001, when the New Tribes Missions couple was kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf, Islamic terrorists in the Philippines. I also remember hearing of her husband’s death and her release, and then, sometime later, my alma mater’s in-person honoring of her faith (a couple of her nieces were on the dormitory staff) during her ordeal. Her book has been on my “want-to-read-list” since I heard of is publishing, but I never followed through until this month, when the book, In the Presence of My Enemies was offered free via Kindle (no longer available free Kindle download, although the first chapter is available to read here). In the book, Gracia shares her early life and marriage to Martin, their 17 years of ministry as missionaries in the Philippines, their life there with their three children, and then the 376 days of their captivity (after being kidnapped while at a small resort where they were celebrating their eighteenth wedding anniversary). With only the clothes on their backs (which wasn’t much, as they were taken away in the early hours of the morning), they faced over a year of difficult travels, near starvation, absence of of basic sanitation and comfort, constant exhaustion and physical pain, false hope of release, gunfights, and even having fellow captives face rape and decapitation. In the end, all but one of the other captives besides the Burnhams and those who were killed were released. Martin was unintentionally killed by the gunfire of their rescuers, and Gracia wounded. The struggles they faced were not merely physical. Gracia humbly and honestly recounts her spiritual struggles during their time in the jungle, one which allowed her to emerge believing in and testifying to the gracious and loving sovereignty of God. The book gives readers a glimpse into fundamentalist, Islamic-based terrorist groups, particularly the dynamic that comes to play when the militants are somewhat uneducated to their own religion and even the manipulation and hypocrisy that is used to force others to join. After her rescue, Gracia was asked to return to the Philippines to testify against her kidnappers. Eventually, those who were not killed in subsequent gunfights, or who had not escaped, were imprisoned. In an ultimate expression of loving her enemies, Gracia writes these men and shares with them the Gospel. She has also started ministries to help provide financially for their families by buying some of their craftsmanship. As…
Read MoreReading 2012: Spirit-Led Parenting
In Spirit-Led Parenting: From Fear to Freedom in Baby’s First Year, Megan Tietz and Laura Oyer reflect on their early years of parenting, and how God moved them from fear to freedom during their first year of mothering. The book is divided into two parts, the first (chapters 1 through 3) focusing on their personal journey and their realization that many young mothers have also had a similar experience, and then part two (chapters 4 through 11) mostly focuses on examining specific areas in which many young mothers have been led to believe confusing and conflicting teachings. I picked up this book because it was new and written specifically to a Christian audience (with specific encouragement to mothers who have already read and/or practiced confusing mainstream parenting advice). It’s a field in which I try to read broadly, though this one definitely captured my interest as my experience of concerns with some “infant management” teachings seemed slightly similar to the authors’s experience. Still, I was surprised at how refreshing and encouraging this book was to me as we prepare to care for and nurture an infant again, in what could be just a few days or weeks. Contents: Chapter One: As We Began Chapter Two: As We Confess Our Fears Chapter Three: As We Pursue Another Way Chapter Four: As We Feed Them Chapter Five: As They Sleep Chapter Six: As We Parent Together Chapter Seven: As We Keep the Spark Chapter Eight: As We Encourage Connection Chapter Nine: As They Sleep … Where? Chapter Ten: As We Stay On Track Chapter Eleven: As We Have Found His Redemption Why We Accept Fear-Based Living and Rules of Parenting Infants (For highlighting this book, I think this post is less of a “review” and more of an introduction and exposure to the book. As such, I wanted to pull out several quotes from the book.) “The stakes in parenting are high. Unlike other areas of life in which we can walk away if things don’t work out, in parenting this is it. You are the only parents your child gets and it is up to you not to mess it up. That is an incredible amount of pressure, and it weighs heavily on parents-to-be. Added to this is the fear of failing our spouses, our marriages, and our circles of friends by not sticking to the established norms for how things are…
Read MoreLinks to Think: 03.12.12
Conversion and Conversionism – Mike Horton discusses conversion, the ordo salutis, and the reading list for his recent article, “What To Do When Your Testimony Is Boring.” I appreciate his highlighting a covenant view of children here in his explanation of conversion and conversionism (emphasis mine): “Conversion is a biblical teaching wherein we learn that we’re not active in our regeneration. However, activated by God’s grace, we repent and believe. Repentance and belief are gifts, but we are the ones repenting and believing – this is conversion. “Conversionism” (the conversionism in the evangelical church, with which we’re all familiar) is reductionistic in two ways. First, it reduces the field of conversion to those who have no connection with the church. When we treat conversion as always something radical and distinct from the ordinary means of grace in the covenantal nurture of Christian families and churches, we make void the promise “for you and your children,” (Acts 2:39). Half of our missionfield—those covenant children already entrusted to our care—is cut off. They are not Christians; they must become Christians outside the ordinary operations of the church’s ministry, in an event specially crafted to produce conversions. Second, it reduces the time of conversion to a moment in the past. In the New Testament, though, conversion is a lifelong process. The question is not whether I repented and believed once upon a time. My older brother isn’t walking with the Lord. Nevertheless, whenever I have raised the question, he assures me that he is “saved” because he responded to an altar call and invited Jesus into his heart when he was 7. There is no valid profession of faith today, but he was taught early on that none of this really matters. Conversion—the daily call to die to self (repentance/ mortification) and live to Christ (faith/vivification)—is ongoing. It is a life of conversion, however imperfect and incomplete, not a moment of conversion, that believers embrace by God’s grace.” Russia in color, a century ago – The Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” highlights some amazing color photos from Russia around 1910. (These are amazing! Take a look.) “Photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color…
Read MoreReading 2012: Ministries of Mercy
Timothy Keller’s Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road is a valuable expansion on both the why’s and how’s of loving our neighbors, particularly doing so through mercy ministries. After taking a closer look at both Jesus’ command to love our neighbors and the Parable of the Good Samaritan (in the Prologue and Introduction, respectively), Keller divides his book into two parts, each with seven chapters: Principles and Practice. The first portion, Principles, is an in-depth study of the Biblical teaching on loving our neighbors through social justice and mercy ministry, while the second portion, Practice, focuses on the practical and technical aspects of practicing mercy ministry.
Read MoreFour Types of People Who Would Benefit from Keller’s “Generous Justice”
In the introduction to Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just, Tim Keller notes that there are four types of people who he hopes will read his book: 1. People who have a concern for social justice and have been involved in the volunteerism movement, but who do not let their social concern affect their personal lives. [This concern] does not influence how they spend money on themselves, how they conduct their careers, the way they choose and live in neighbhorhoods, or whom they seek as friends. Also, many lose enthusiasm for volunteering over time. From their youth culture they have imbibed not only an emotional resonance for social justice but also a consumerism that undermines self-denial and delayed gratification. Popular youth culture in Western countries cannot bring about the broad change of life in us that is required if we are to make a difference for the poor and marginalized. While many young adults have a Christian faith, and also desire to help people in need, these two things are not actually connected to each other in their lives. They have not thought out the implications of Jesus’s gospel for doing justice in all aspects of life. That connection I will attempt to make in this book. (xi) 2. The person who approaches the subject of “doing justice” with suspicion. In the twentieth century the American church divided between the liberal mainline that stressed social justice and the fundamentalist churches that emphasized personal salvation. One of the founders of the Social Gospel movement was Walter Rauschenbusch, a German Baptist minister whose first pastorate was on the edge of New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen in the 1880s. His firsthand acquaintance with the terrible poverty of his neighborhood led him to question traditional evangelism, which took pains to save people’s souls but did nothing about the social systems locking them into poverty. Rauschenbusch began to minister to “both soul and body,” but in tandem with this shift in method came a shift in theology. He rejected the traditional doctrines of Scripture and atonement. He taught that Jesus did not need to satisfy the justice of God, and therefore he died only to be an example of unselfishness. In the mind of many orthodox Christians, therefore, “doing justice” is inextricably linked with the loss of sound doctrine and spiritual dynamism. However, Jonathan Edwards, the eighteenth-century author of the sermons “Sinners in…
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