Gordon Korman. The Unteachables. Balzer + Bray, 2019.
———. The Superteacher Project. Balzer + Bray, 2023.

One year I was between jobs. Like many teachers between jobs, I substituted. One day at one of the high schools, I replaced a distinctive teacher. I forget what the official name of the class was, but it was basically the proto-delinquents. They stayed in the same classroom all day and had to be supervised any time they left the classroom. When I entered the classroom, one of the custodians was using a heavy duty cleanser to wipe off some graffiti that had been written on some desks with a magic marker. Teachers there asked me whom I was subbing for. When I told them, they all shook their heads and offered their sympathy. It was not too bad of a day, but that was the only time I ever had to sub for that class.

Gordon Korman’s The Unteachables is about one such class of eighth graders. Just as Welcome Back Kotter’s group became known as the Sweathogs, this group was nicknamed the Unteachables. As is true with many of Korman’s YA tales, the story is told from numerous points of view, but the main character is truly Mr. Kermit, their teacher.

Twenty-seven years before, Mr. Kermit was caught up in a cheating scandal. He was innocent, but he took most of the blame anyhow. After that, he simply lost motivation. He was given different assignments no one else wanted and ended up with the Unteachables. Guess what? He does not teach them. He does crossword puzzles and hands out worksheets. Nothing is ever graded. The class is simply a student holding tank for a year when Riverview Middle School can pass them along to the high school.

As usual, there is a cast of distinctive characters. Their town of Greenwich is somewhat rural, so Parker has a provisional driving license to drive his family farm’s produce to town even though he is only fourteen. Aldo has anger management problems that get him into trouble. There is Elaine, bigger than most of the students in the class and feared by everyone in the school for her strength. She is always referred to as “Elaine, as in pain.” And by pain, we mean physical pain.

Then there’s Barnstorm, top athlete on the football team until an accident puts him on crutches. Not only is he off the team, but teachers no longer give him a “gentleman’s” passing grade just because he is a sports’ star. He ends up in the Unteachables, too. Bitter.

And Kiana, whose parents are divorced. She lives with her mother normally, but her mother is an actress on a film shoot in the Utah desert. Kiana, then, goes to Greenwich with her father and his new wife and their baby son. Her stepmother never bothers to register Kiana at the school, so she wanders into the Unteachables room and stays there. It’s only going to be eight weeks, so who cares if she learns anything?

To complicate things for Mr. Kermit, there is a new young teacher next door. She had been teaching kindergarten and still does things like a kindergarten teacher. She has her seventh and eighth graders sitting in a sharing circle for part of each class. She has various charts with stickers showing student accomplishments. She keeps a pet lizard in the classroom. She also is the daughter and spitting image of Mr. Kermit’s former fiancée who broke their engagement because of the accusations in the cheating scandal.

Mr. Kermit has a plan, though. He turns fifty-five this year, so he can get early retirement and get on with life. It happens that the superintendent was Kermit’s principal twenty-seven years ago, and when he sees that Kermit will be eligible for retirement, he decides paying for the retirement of a cheater is a waste of taxpayers’ money, so he has taken on the role of getting Mr. Kermit fired before it is too late. The Kermit family is known for its longevity: Mr. Kermit’s father is in his eighties, and his grandfather is still alive and lively at 106. That could mean a very long pension payout.

This simply describes many, but not all, of the complications. There is the typical Korman fish out of water situation (Kiana really does not belong in the class) and lots of other incidents involving Parker’s pickup truck, a thousand Vuvuzelas that end up in the river, and much more. Readers will laugh. Readers of his No More Dead Dogs can anticipate a humorous denouement as the class begins reading Where the Red Fern Grows. I remember being told in high school that a good story usually has characters change in some way. Many changes happen here. It is a hoot how they happen.

The Superteacher Project also takes place at a middle school, in this case Brightling Middle School, somewhere in the middle of the United States about the same distance from New York, Miami, and Denver. This features the uncanny and mysterious Mr. Aidact, a new math teacher at the school, who seems to know everything about anything.

Rap lyrics, yes. German opera lyrics, the same. He catches spitballs in mid-air. He does not mind detention duty, and detentions end up becoming popular. He even coaches the perennially losing girls’ field hockey team to a winning season. Superteacher, indeed.

As is typical of Korman’s school stories, we get the story from multiple points of view. There is a girl on the field hockey team whose single mother has developed a crush on the new coach. How embarrassing is that? There are two boys who are pranksters extraordinaire. Yes, even the principal and other teachers have a chapter or two.

Nathan and Oliver, the two pranksters, have devised the ultimate prank. Some of the school rules are holdovers from when the school building was a new elementary school, so there is a prohibition against riding Big Wheels in the school. Now, most middle schoolers cannot even fit onto a Big Wheels plastic bike, but Oliver has decided that rules are made to be broken.

Field hockey referees give Mr. Aidact the nickname Eagle Eyes. He argues for his team such things as her stick did not hit the other stick, it came within 2.5 millimeters, but they never touched! The girls on the team begin to respect him because he actually teaches them field hockey strategy and sticks up for the team—even to the point of being ejected from a game.

Most alert readers will figure out this genius’s secret, which is revealed for every reader in Chapter Five. Between crazy pranks and clever perceptions, this story becomes another very funny Gordon Korman tale. He recycles one or two plot elements from previous books, but this is still an enjoyable YA read. Korman knows his audience, and he knows what is funny.

N.B. People who followed the 2010 World Cup remember vuvuzelas—the long plastic horns used by South African sports fans as noisemakers.

James T. Harman. Daniel’s Prophecies Unsealed. Prophecy Countdown, 2018.
___. Daniel’s Prophecies Unsealed: The Final Countdown. Prophecy Countdown, 2023.

In spite of the similar titles, these are two different books with little overlap. The Final Countdown builds on the first one, Daniel’s Prophecies Unsealed.

The author assumes, as many writers have done so since the 1970s, that we are in the last days of the earth’s present state. The title of the first book comes from the Book of Daniel 12:4-5:

But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.

The author understands that much of the prophetic pictures and explanations in the Book of Daniel are not easily understood, but that the meanings will remain obscure “until the time of the end.” The book purports to “unseal” Daniel so we can understand it in terms of the end times. The second book focuses on one thesis which we will take a look at.

Chapters 2, 7, and 8 of Daniel have similar images of four kingdoms represented by four different creatures or images that show the four kingdoms or empires that will rule Judea or Israel. Generally, interpreters have understood that the three chapters describe the same four empires: Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Indeed, chapter 8 names specifically the first three empires and tells us that the fourth empire will conquer the Greek. Alexander’s empire was divided by his generals into four regions, all later conquered by Rome, so Rome is generally understood to be the fourth empire.

However, Harman sees the four creatures in Daniel 7 differently, He sees them referring specifically to the end times since the culmination is the Son of Man being given rule over the earth, something that has not physically happened yet. If we are in the end times, then, he sees the four creatures as Great Britain, Russia, an Arab or Muslim Alliance, and a fourth, possibly the United States but perhaps another nation.

While Harman basically agrees with the traditional interpretation of the four creatures in Daniel 8—after all, three of them are specifically named—he does note that some of the latter verses that chapter parallel descriptions of the Antichrist (“Beast”) and False Prophet of Revelation. Verses 3-8 describe the four historical empires, but verses 9-14 and 23-25 speak of end times. We can see parallels between Daniel 8:23-25 and Revelation 13:11-18, so it does appear that part of the prophecy is about the Second Coming of Christ, not the first time He came.

He also notes a few things about Christ and Antichrist that may be overlooked. The description of the man in Daniel 10:5-6 who prophesies to Daniel is virtually identical to the vision of Jesus that John has in Revelation 1:13-14. I also note that Daniel calls him lord and is not corrected for it, the way the angel would correct John in Revelation 22:8-9. The “abomination” of Daniel 12:1 and 12:11 is similar to Matthew 24:15 and 24:21.

This close reading gives us some things to consider.

The Final Countdown contains some of the same things as the first book but emphasizes a few new things, or things not emphasized in the first book.

One is that the author believes in two raptures of believers. He understands the parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25:1-13 a bit differently from traditional teaching. He states that the virgins all belong to Christ: they are virgins and they were all given oil. But the five virgins who enter in are those who are ready for Jesus’ coming and they are raptured before the tribulation. The others have to learn faithfulness through the tribulation and will be raptured later. He says that Revelation 12:17 notes the Antichrist will war against “the remnant” of the godly who will have to learn to overcome.

But the main theme of The Final Countdown is based on Daniel 9. In an article we posted here, we showed that Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem being hailed as king on Palm Sunday was precisely described in Daniel 9:25. From the time the order was given to rebuild and restore Jerusalem until He comes was described to the very day—if we accept the idea that prophetic years are 360 days. This has been pointed out by many others. (My personal contribution to the discussion was noting a connection with Psalm 118.)

Harman takes issue with this interpretation and says that the year that Artaxerxes gave the order to rebuild was not 444 B.C. but 454 B.C. He cites Floyd Nolen Jones who gives the second date. The book would have us believe that this was a new discovery by Dr. Jones. It is simply a different interpretation. The order was given in the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes (Nehemiah 2:1). Artaxexes co-ruled with his father Xerxes I for ten years. It depends on how one interprets Nehemiah 2:1. Was it the twentieth year beginning when he was installed as co-regent, or when he began ruling on his own?

So Harman takes the earlier date and assumes regular 365.24 day years, and the 483 years come out to A.D. 26 or 27. Harman then takes this as the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the year of his crucifixion as A.D. 30. (It has to be either 30 or 33 as those are the only two years in which Pilate ruled Judea and Passover began on a Thursday evening.)

Perhaps the most interesting thing Harman does, then, is he says that the final seven years in the prophecy describe Jesus’ earthly ministry, about three and a half years followed by the Jews hearing the Gospel. The “strong covenant” becomes Jesus’ ministry to the Jews and the conversion of many of them. Halfway through the seven years He will put an end to sacrifice because he would die as the perfect and complete sacrifice (see Hebrews 9:12 and 10:10). At the end of the seven years, approximately three and a half years after Jesus’ resurrection, the ministry of His church would begin to focus on Gentiles with the salvation of Cornelius or conversion of Paul. This is certainly plausible, though the New Testament is fuzzy about dating many of the events.

The Final Countdown sees a second significance of the prophecy of years in Daniel 9. He points out that between 1537-1541 the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent began a program to rebuild Jerusalem. The rebuilding included a moat, a term used in many of the English translations of Daniel 9:25. What if that also was prophetically significant? Then 1537 plus 483 (using calendar years) comes out to 2020. Does this mean we are in the last days? Harman thinks so.

As with all writings about prophecy, even what I have done as noted above, we need to examine the evidence and realize that we may not truly understand the prophecy until it happens. Nevertheless, Jesus’ words apply to us as much as they did to his disciples twenty centuries ago:

Therefore be alert, because you don’t know either the day or the hour. (Matthew 25:13 HCSB)

Yes, let us be alert.

Glenn Beck and Harriet Parke. Agenda 21. Threshold, 2012.

“They think they can mandate things. Create this much energy every day. have this many babies every year. But it just doesn’t work like that. The more new laws and regulations they issue, the worse the results are.”

I had no idea what they were talking about. (26)

We pledge our allegiance
To the wisdom of the Central Authority.
We pledge our dedication
To the earth and to its preservation. (86 passim)

About ten years ago when Agenda 21 came out, dystopian novels were big sellers, especially to the young adult (YA) audience. Think of The Hunger Games and Divergent. This is Glenn Beck’s contribution, though there is evidence that a greater contribution came from his co-author Ms. Parke.

Now the two other series mentioned both played on youth identity crises to some degree. Agenda 21 does also. Our main character is Emmeline, fourteen at the beginning of the book. The United States, or at least part of it, is now called simply the Republic. It takes on some of the worst parts of Communism with a focus on radical environmentalism. People are seen to be the cause of all the problems in the natural world, so most of the country is left fallow and people are prohibited to travel outside the compounds (communes?) where they live and work.

The compounds include concrete apartment buildings with one room to a person or a couple. Children are reared by the state. There are echoes of Brave New World here, except that the state has not yet developed the manufacturing of human beings in that novel. The off-limits land outside of the compounds reminded me of the hinterlands of John the Savage in Brave New World or the wilderness of We.

Emmeline lives with her mother and father in one such compound. She was one of the last people to be reared by her own parents. This makes her a kind of freak to others her age. She has just menstruated for the first time. The authorities require this information to be reported. She undergoes a physical exam, and pretty soon she is “paired.” There is no romance; mates are assigned. Babies are expected and taken to the child care compound as soon as they are born.

Some people do work at the child care unit. Some people work on transportation. Automobiles and most transportation except the railroads have been outlawed. Railroads are used virtually only for freight. Transportation is either by bicycle or bus-box, carts pulled by six people. Emmeline’s father, for example, pulls a bus-box for a Transport Team. Human horsepower.

It is understood that the world was almost destroyed by energy demands. Now people produce most of the electrical energy being used. Bicycles all have generators that get discharged. Most people who are not working for the government work on “boards,” treadmill-like devices that produce energy. Everyone is expected to produce a quota of energy every day. Punishment or some kind of deprivation result for those who do not produce.

Through most of the book, Emmeline simply goes to work every day on her board to produce electricity. The people are fed nutrition cubes twice a day along with a daily quota of water. When Emmeline becomes pregnant, she sometimes get an egg in addition to the nutrient cube. Some older people remember the old days when people prepared meals and dishes, perhaps a bit like Winston Smith remembering real chocolate bars in 1984.

Life is regulated and, frankly, very boring. Authorities cannot understand why so many young people are not producing babies and why many of the children raised in the child care compounds are physically unfit. Unlike Brave New World, there is no soma drug to give relief. Not even vodka, which was ubiquitous in the old Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, around them and outside the limited compound areas, wildlife thrives. People are commended for feeding squirrels and birds. Let nature take its course and the oxygen supply will increase. Let most energy be created by the people themselves.

The government is simply called the Authority. There are no elections. Stories about elections tell how foolish and superficial they were. I was reminded of the footrace from The Aeneid where the racer Euryalus who cheated is voted the winner because he was good looking. Vergil was writing for the Emperor Augustus who had gotten rid of the republic. Dictatorship and monarchy are superior in both fantasy worlds.

The term Agenda 21 does not appear in the story. Unlike the fictional Republic, Agenda 21 is real. It is the 300 page environmental protocol passed by the United Nations as part of the Rio Accords in 1992. Beck and Parke imagine what would happen if all of those protocols were actually adopted. Maybe “nature” would prevail, but what would happen to humanity?

I was a little surprised to see cover endorsements from action-adventure authors Brad Thor and Nelson DeMille on what I thought would be a political analysis. This review has mostly described the setting, but the story is a page turner. Emmeline faces numerous challenges including multiple pairings when previous ones are not productive, and, especially when she finally does give birth and has to give up her baby immediately. What happens to mothers? to families?

This is neither the “boot in the face” of 1984 or the psycho-sexual fantasy of Brave New World though some elements like the wilderness area may have echoes of that novel. This is not a post-apocalyptic disaster novel like much sci-fi. This Republic may avoid the eco-apocalypse, but we are reminded that “scientific” social structures from Plato to Marcuse to Xi may look good on paper, but the reality reminds us that humans are not squirrels, and the life well lived will have friends, family, and a higher purpose.

Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped. 1886; Amazon/Project Gutenberg, 2012.

I had read a recent review that mentioned Kidnapped as one of the reviewer’s favorites. Now I have read Treasure Island more than once, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Black Arrow, The South Seas, and even Weir of Hermiston. Oh, and I loved A Child’s Garden of Verses when I was a kid. Somehow I missed reading Kidnapped.

Now I have read it, and I can say that it is a real page-turner. Young David Balfour is betrayed by a devious relative and kidnapped. Today we might say shanghaied. He was captured and made to serve on a sailing vessel back in 1751 and 1752 in Scotland.

To tell the story, Balfour alludes to other adventure stories occasionally. He is shipwrecked on a tiny island with virtually no vegetation. He mentions that he has read other books about survival on a desert island, but the people always had tools or access to a sunken ship with supplies to get him started. That sounds like Robinson Crusoe or Alexander Selkirk. Fortunately for him, he discovers after three days that he can walk to the mainland of a nearby populated island at low tide.

At one point his traveling companion mentions the Odyssey. That is perhaps the closest comparison, though after the initial kidnapping and shipwreck, most of David Balfour’s adventures are on land. It may help some readers to have a map, as he travels throughout much of the Scottish Highlands (Stevenson, or Balfour, spells it Hieland) to eventually get back to his home town and try to get his uncle to do right by him.

While David Balfour is a fictional character from a Lowland Loyalist town, his traveling companion carries the name of an actual historical figure, Alan Breck Stewart. Readers may tell from the time period, his name, and location that Stewart is a Jacobite, a supporter of the claim of the Stewarts to the English throne. He has recently come from France where Bonnie Prince Charlie and his father James “The Old Pretender” hold court. He is considered an outlaw because he deserted the British Army when the Stewart uprising against the sitting king began in 1745.

The Stewarts in particular hate the Campbells. Much of the territory of the Jacobite lords was taken by the Crown and various members of the Campbell clan were given the authority to collect rents and act on behalf of the king. Mr. Stewart knows his way around the Highlands, and in the course of the journey we meet many people, mostly those who are Jacobites or who are neutral.

In May of 1652 David Balfour witnesses the Appin Murder—the sniper assassination of Colin Roy Campbell, a Campbell leader known as the Red Fox. Because Alan Breck Stewart has been reported back in Scotland, he becomes a prime suspect. That, by the way, is history. The murder was never solved, Stewart was never apprehended and likely had nothing to do with the assassination, but he was wanted and probably would have hanged if he had been caught. In the tale, David is also wanted, though it is unclear whether anyone knows his real name.

Much of the time Alan and David are living among the wild heather in all kinds of weather. David does become ill more than once, but they keep on moving. At times they are hiding very close to British soldiers. We see a wide variety of Highlanders, including one clan leader who lives at least some of the time in a moss-covered hive-shaped hut that blends in to the side of a rock. The color of the rock conceals most of the smoke that comes from the hut’s fireplace.

Much of the time, David, a Lowlander who only speaks Scots’ English, has no idea what people are saying as many in the highlands speak only Gaelic. Alan acts as a translator. But also we learn that some Highlanders can speak English but do not want to let on that they can.

It is complicated by other factors as well. David’s parents have both died, and the person in his village looking out for him is the pastor of the church whose name is Campbell. While David claims to be indifferent about his religious beliefs, when he does speak of them, everyone says he sounds like a Covenanter, and the Stewart claimants and many of the highlanders are Catholic. Still, every Jacobite respects Alan Breck, and David carries a button from Alan’s coat which carries the family arms, so among many in the Highlands, that is a golden bough.

On sea and land, on mountain and valley, by streams and by lochs, in woods and on moors (muirs), David goes “there and back again” with many lively encounters and adventures. Perhaps not quite as exotic as Treasure Island, this is still a great page turner, well worth the time. It also gives an idea of the historical period and some of the political conflicts of the era.

Kidnapped has many words unique to the Scots’ dialect of English. The edition reviewed here has some notes for some of the terms, but many readers might find an annotated edition helpful. An edition with maps might also make some things a bit clearer as well. Such things do not impose that much to the reading. Overall, most readers will be carried along on an excellent odyssey.

N.B. The name of Stewart is spelled various ways. We are using Stevenson’s spelling in this review.

P.S. I did find two excellent maps online on a single page: https://www.stevensonway.org.uk/index.php/1-the-way/overview. It turns out that in Scotland people will try to hike the Stevenson Way—the route that David Balfour took after he was shipwrecked. The web page comes from a web site that is set up for those who want to make the hike

Simon Turpin. Scoffers. Master Books, 2021.

Scoffers gets its title from II Peter 3:3 (some translations say “mockers”):

…knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (II Peter 3:3-7)

I personally remember discovering these verses years ago as I was reading the Bible. I said to myself, “This is an end-times’ prophecy that has already come to pass.”

Modern evolutionists embrace a Uniformitarian view of geology: that the natural processes all proceed slowly and gradually change things over long periods of time. If the flood of Noah were historical, then Uniformitarianism is wrong. The Catastrophists are right.

We see this prediction in II Peter having come to pass in other ways. There is a tendency for people today—I have observed this personally—to mock people who are skeptical of evolution or of a creation that is billion of years old. Scoffers or mockers, indeed.

Peter was even accurate about the specifics of the criticism of Christianity. Darwin wrote in his Autobiography that he abandoned biblical teaching on origins for two reasons: he was skeptical about the worldwide flood of Noah, and he called the idea of eternal punishment in hell a “damnable doctrine.” Wow! He “deliberately overlooked” specifically Noah’s flood and a future judgment by fire! God knows what is going on.

Scoffers takes these things and goes into great detail. The whole book is an in depth study of chapter 3 of II Peter. Turpin begins with Peter’s appeal to the authority and historicity of the ancient prophets of the Bible. So how can we be sure those Old Testament writings were accurate and the writers “carried along by the Holy Spirit”?

Then Scoffers gets into the part alluded to above. What did Peter mean by scoffers? What about prophecies about the end of the age? Do people really overlook creation? Have others besides Darwin deliberately rejected the first eleven chapters of Genesis including the Flood? What about judgment of “the ungodly”? Will there be a new heaven and a new earth?

Scoffers is wide-ranging, covering appropriate parts of the Bible, of science, of anthropology, of archaeology, of theology. Ultimately, Scoffers, in spite of its title, is very positive, uplifting, and hopeful. Even though we have read and reviewed other creationist books on these pages, this reviewer learned a few new things.

For example, I had never really noticed Genesis 19:9 before. When the men of Sodom demand that Lot send his two male visitors outside so they can sodomize them, Lot refuses and calls them wicked. Their response includes the complaint, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge!” Doesn’t that describe homosexual activists today? “Don’t judge us! Don’t be judgmental!” As Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 says:

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

Mr. Turpin also tries to avoid controversies among Christians. For example II Peter 3:9 says

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Turpin notes:

Christians who are Arminian in their theology understand that the “any” and “all” in 3:9 as referring to God’s desire to save every single person alive, whereas Christians who are Calvinistic in their theology generally understand the “any” and “all” to be an expansion of “you” in 3:9 and referring to God’s desire to save his elect people. (202 n.3)

Scoffers is rich in detail, evidence, and examples. It is well organized, well documented, and clear. And unlike the Scoffers whom Peter alluded to, it respects its audience.

Jenny Leavitt. GodPrints. Redemption P, 2022.

I confess that I was a bit skeptical about GodPrints as I began reading it. Back in the early seventies critics coined the term “disease of the week.” Due to the popularity of the novel and film Love Story and television specials like Brian’s Song, stories about people suffering terrible diseases became overdone. As I began this book, I was beginning to feel like someone was trying to exploit my tear ducts. Even the title seemed a bit strained.

Gradually, as I realized what the author was doing, I changed. GodPrints is pretty intense in places, but it has a truly redemptive purpose. It is worth sharing.

Mrs. Leavitt tells about her own battle with cancer. She was a young mother in her early twenties with two preschool sons when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which is often fatal. The treatments were brutal. I was reminded of Gunther’s Death Be Not Proud, the explorer’s memoir about the death of his teenaged son from a brain tumor. She and her husband were told that she probably would not live. Obviously, she did, or she would not be writing this book.

What made this story different from the other ones I have mentioned was the both Mr. and Mrs. Leavitt, though they came from rough backgrounds, had committed their lives to Christ when they were teenagers. What was happening? What would happen to her little boys? She not only committed herself to Jesus, but she and her husband committed themselves to fight the disease.

Since the couple were young and Mr. Leavitt was just starting out in a career, there were financial as well as medical concerns. She credits the support of their church at the time as well. People were looking out for them and praying for them. Although she has suffered from side effects from the cancer treatments and the cancer itself, she has been in remission for many years.

But it is fair to say that the cancer was not the biggest trial. We read about her family and her two sons growing. The younger one, Jacob, had begun taking the Bible seriously when he was about fifteen or sixteen. She could see some real and positive changes. She was thanking the Lord for the way He was working in his life.

Then, one night, the boys were on their way home in their car from a church event, and their car was struck by a drunk driver. Jacob died. Caleb survived but took months to recover from his injuries. In many ways this was a harder trial than the cancer. We can attribute Jacob’s death to simple natural facts, but it still hurt.

As is true in many cases with the death of a child, the accident put a strain on the couple’s relationship. It is not uncommon to have a divorce follow the death of a child. Mrs. Leavitt honestly chronicles their struggles. This story became a lot more than just a disease of the week story.

If there is a theme to GodPrints, it perhaps can be summed up by James 1:2-4:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (For a great musical adaptation of these verses go to https://safeshare.tv/x/ss646654689bbe0.)

Hard times can have some people turn bitterly away from God, but to find real strength and consolation, they can draw people closer to God. Where else can they turn for such support?

While GodPrints focuses on those two major trials, there are others as well. She describes a few years after Jacob’s passing in a chapter titled “Six Months from Hell.” She is a little vague on this, but basically through much of her life, she had been conscious of the Lord’s presence. Now, there was no sense of that. She realized afterwards that God will do that to get us to simply have faith regardless of how we feel. Trust in Him and His Word. That is what faith is, regardless of what we might be experiencing.

There were other events in the lives of the Leavitts, moves, job changes, even starting a church. But overall, their story has potential for ministering to its readers. Because the Leavitts have been through so much, we can see that what they have learned is hardly superficial. They have been there.

As kind of a postscript, I was reminded of an experience in my own life. When I was twenty-two, two of my best friends from high school were killed in an automobile accident. The last few times I saw my friend Bruce before he died, he was talking about God in a different way. He asked not “Do you believe in God?” but “Do you know God?” He had changed. Jesus had become real to him.

Looking back, his dying got me thinking about what happens when we die. Bruce had a faith that I did not have, but I had a sense that Bruce was all right. It would take another three years before I had my own experience with Jesus, but that accident was a “GodPrint” in my life. GodPrints is not mystical. It is real, it is raw, but through it all there is a confidence that God knows what is going on and that He has something better for His people.

Another book we recently reviewed with a similar bent is Be Held by Him. Although both books deal with enduring and handling trials, including severe diseases, they are different. I would recommend Be Held by Him especially for people whose problem is mysterious, rare, undiagnosed, or thought imaginary. I would recommend GodPrints especially for married couples and for parents who have lost a child. Both are well worth sharing with people who are going through trials and maybe wondering where God is in all that is happening.

Bob Santos. Greater Glory. SfMe Media, 2023.

As I have said about a few other books, if you were to read this book with a yellow highlighter, it would be simpler to dunk the book into a bucket of yellow ink. Greater Glory has something to share on every page. To really benefit, read it slowly.

Greater Glory is subtitled The Transformational Power of Christian Unity. Jesus prayed that His people would be one as He and the Father were one (see John 17:11). From my perspective, things are getting better in that regard, but Christians are still divided among themselves. Mr. Santos shows us a way through. It may require more humility than many of us, especially Americans, are used to, but if we can relate to our brothers and sisters truly as brothers and sisters, it strengthens the whole body.

Many years ago I read Daring to Draw Near by John White. About three or four chapters in, I was reading it on my knees. Greater Glory did not make me do that, but it had a surprising effect on me. I knew I needed to change. I had to confess there was still a lot of pride in me so that I tended not to see things the way I should. Before I could say, “Please read this book,” I realized I had to confess that I was falling short and needed the Lord’s help.

Greater Glory seems to be written more for the Church in the West. The title of the first chapter gives us a hint of where Mr. Santos is going—“Whose Kingdom Are You Building?” Many years ago when I worked for the Federal Government, people would talk about Empire Builders in the bureaucracy. They were able to use the law and whatever practices and rules there were to insure that their job would appear to be indispensable, and they would at least have job security if not generous promotions.

Alas, Santos notes that churches, whether individual congregations or church groups, often are tempted the same way. But we understand when we read the Bible that God does not see things that way. There is only one Kingdom—His. If we can really see that, then we can work with other Christians who are not part of “our church” and accomplish things in the power of the Holy Spirit that we never could on our own.

Greater Glory notes a few important ideas.

Believers are never told to become one; we already are one and are expected to act like it. (320)

Unity and uniformity are two very different concepts, but we often confuse them. (340)

The greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit this reviewer ever experienced was around 1979. It was a Christian men’s convention. The men came from many walks of life and from virtually every church group, Protestant, Catholic, Independent. The Lord blessed that convention, and for a brief time we were rejoicing at the foot of His throne.

Santos also reminds us that the walk with God is based on a covenant. A covenant is not like a contract.

In producing a contract, each party is concerned primarily about its own interests. But with a relational covenant we emphasize the other party’s interests. (346, emphasis in original)

The Lord gives equal honor to all Christians, and he desires to bless all equally. (496)

Now, some readers may ask, “Yes, but what about what that group believes?” or “what that church practices?”

Santos gives wise counsel in chapters titled “Navigating Doctrinal Differences,” “Factions,” “Resolving Conflict,” “False Prophets,” and “Bringing Correction.” These things are difficult and by no means trivial. Santos shares not only Bible teachings but personal experiences and observations. He has seen the Lord make significant changes in the community where he lives because many of the churches got together to pray and to agree to focus on the key features of the church as a whole such as repentance, prayer, and biblical instruction. The chapter titled “Tearing Down Walls” is worth reading on its own even if you were skim other chapters.

It should be obvious from even the variety of God’s creation, what a fascinating world we live in, that its Creator loves variety. Similarly, “The diversity of Christ’s body is why love, not uniformity, serves as the perfect bond of unity” (1205). He notes that when the parts of the human body attack other parts of the body, it is a sign of autoimmune disease. Something similar can happen to the body of Christ.

The key idea of all this is intentional edification. We either focus on building others up, or we fixate on how they fall short. (1262)

Caesar hoped to reform men by changing institutions and laws. Christ wished to remake institutions, and lessen laws, by changing men. (1278)

Common thought tells us that we foster change through public criticism, boycotts. protests, and the manipulation of public opinion. (1307)

But

Real change and genuine transformation require welcoming the kingdom of God through prayer and yielding to heaven’s throne. (1314)

How strange it must seem in the eyes of heaven that multiple congregations within a community would compete and criticize one another while trying to accomplish the same purposes! If nothing else, we are unified by our mission. (1452)

I could go on quoting, but these are principles and directions. The book is also full of examples of what works and what does not work, what is the Bible’s way and what is man’s way. If nothing else, Greater Glory gives us something to pray about. For example, I pray for my church and the people in it every day. What if I start praying for the other churches in my area? What if others do?

I recall another book I read years ago. I do not recall who wrote it or what book it was in. (Any readers out there who might know?) But the author was praying for revival, and he felt the Lord asking him if he could pray for the revival to come to a different church?

A unified Church is the only offering we dare present to the coming Christ, for in it alone will He find room to dwell. (1499)

Marc Cameron. Tom Clancy: Red Winter. Putnam, 2023.

We had written before that Marc Cameron’s stories from the Tom Clancy estate may be the closest to what Clancy himself might have written.

Red Winter is not a Jack Ryan, Jr., tale. This features the original Jack Ryan, Sr., CIA analyst and independent investor, long before he becomes President. Jack is thirty-four in November 1985 when this is set. Yes, technically November is not winter, but this is walled-off Berlin back when people were worrying about a new ice age rather than global warming. It is cold and snowy. This may be an exercise in nostalgia, but it works.

This is set after the Red October incident and the adventures with the Royal Family in Patriot Games, so Ryan has gotten the attention of Admiral Greer of the CIA. Still, he is not really the main character here. Ryan is working with and under Mary Pat Foley. Mary Pat would be a regular figure in many of the Jack Ryan novels. Her experience teaches Ryan and readers about espionage.

There are two parallel plots in the story. Since this is 1985, the United States is experimenting with stealth aircraft. Rumors abound, and UFO fanatics camp our around an Air Force practice range in Nevada, also known as Area 51. Along with the UFOlogists is an East German spy who knows there is something else going on. When one of the prototype stealth planes crashes, the conspiracy theorists try to reach the site before the military authorities. So does the East German spy.

Most of the action, though, takes place in the divided Berlin. Without preaching, we can see the great difference between East and West, between Communism and Capitalism. Freedom is worth maintaining. Through a convoluted drama, we learn that an East German official wants to defect to the West. For most of the book, no one on either side has any idea who it is. Mary Pat and Jack are dispatched to Berlin, both West and East, to see what they can discover.

We meet a few Stasi (East German Secret Police) officers and a German couple who maintain a safe house in East Berlin. They spied for the Allies during World War II and have kept things going with the various NATO allies since.

We also learn a little more about John Clark, a Clancy regular. He has a very interesting role in this story. He is assigned simply to tail a couple of allied spies in East Berlin. Ryan, Foley, and none of the other allied principals know where he is or what he is doing. It is never simple, especially when international relations are involved.

Red Winter does make observations about government workers on both sides. Jack Ryan notes the following about some of his fellow workers:

Government service was a noble endeavor, but unfortunately there were far too many ruthless self-promoters who clawed their way up through the ranks. (124)

An East German character notes that government workers on their side fall into one of three categories: (1) the true believers who really think they are helping to create a Utopia, (2) people who are attracted to the power, and (3) people who would otherwise be criminals but can use their criminal bent legally working for the government.

There is a lot of action. Being about espionage, the action is more subtle than an overt war or crime story—though I would be lying if I wrote that no one dies. Who is the person who wants to defect? Is he or she genuine or is it some kind of setup? How does this connect to events in Nevada?

We are reminded that the Stasi got many if not most citizens to spy on one another. What can beautiful women do about their Stasi handlers? (Naturally, we mean handler in more than one sense.) What can a person do when his or her family or friends are threatened?

While perhaps not quite as ironic as Rainbow Six. there is a pleasing and ironic ending, and one that is fun to read and mosty unexpected. This throwback novel reminds us of why we liked Clancy in the first place. It also reminds us, as did a review in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, that Communism is amoral and evil. You can try to dress it up and say it is for the good of the people, but that is simply putting jewelry on a pig’s snout.

Jerry Trousdale. Miraculous Movements. Nelson, 2012.

Miraculous Movements was recommended by the same insider who recommended A Wind in the House of Islam. Because it came out a few years earlier, I thought that I might just be reading an earlier version of A Wind in the House of Islam. I was wrong. Its thesis is something else. That is what makes it stand out.

Miraculous Movements does have some of the kinds of testimonies that the other book has. A testimony of one experienced Muslim leader illustrated what I wrote recently to my friend that Islam has no good news, no Gospel. Even Mohammad on his deathbed said that he could not be sure if he were going to Paradise.

Hanif’s commitment to Islam was genuine, but there was a deep void in his soul that Islam never really satisfied. He longed for certainty regarding his status with God. He struggled to find answers or reasons for the violence inside his Islamic world. He grieved at the lack of compassion for suffering people. And he recognized that his religion did not allow him or the people he led make choices for themselves, nor did it give them satisfying answers for the huge struggles of life. (18)

Jesus offered something else.

We read sometimes about dreams and miracles and people intrigued by the person of Jesus as we saw in A Wind in the House of Islam, but there is also a method involved. That is what Miraculous Movements focuses on.

The first few chapters of the Book of Acts describe the beginnings of Christianity in Judea and Samaria. These include some examples of what today we would call mass evangelism. This worked in those places because the people there were familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. Some like the Samaritans and Sadducees just used the first five books, but they all had some background. Also many or most of the people had at least heard of Jesus and what he had been doing.

So when Peter and the others preached to the crowd on Pentecost, about 3,000 repented and were baptized. Acts 4:4 tells us that Peter and John’s preaching converted another 5,000. “Crowds” of Samaritans followed Philip in Acts 8:6. Mass evangelism has had some success especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. People like D. L. Moody, Charles Finney, Billy Graham, Reinhard Bonnke, and others brought many to Christ. But they mostly worked in places that were culturally Christian such as Europe, the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa. They were more like the people in Judea at the time of Christ. They knew about Jesus: Now it was a matter of following Him and obeying Him.

However, once the Book of Acts takes us beyond Jesus’ homeland, the method is different. Indeed, it follows the pattern that Jesus actually gave his own disciples. Matthew 10 gives Jesus’ instructions to the twelve apostles, and Luke 10 gives very similar instructions to the seventy disciples He commissioned.

“And proclaim as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.” (Matthew 10:7-13)

“Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” (Luke 10:2-9)

Notice that they are to go into a town, work for a living, and seek one “who is worthy” or “a son of peace.” They stay and make disciples.

Miraculous Movements emphasizes that the disciples make other disciples. While leaders and those who will be sent out will become obvious, there is no professional clergy as such. This is virtually identical to the way followers of Christ are multiplying in India as told in Bhojpuri Breakthrough.

Using the Bible as support, Miraculous Movements describes step by step how this normally happens. That part should be helpful for American and Western church people as well. So much of the culture today does not have the Christian background that people a generation or two ago used to have. There may still be a place for mass evangelism, but it seems as though the pattern described here works. It works because we see results, but it gets results because it was the way Jesus told His followers to do it.

We note these steps are also described in our review of Motus Dei. Miraculous Movements may be more accessible to some readers, but both teach Christians things we ought to know. Now let us act on them.

The actual results may vary. In some places, people are able to build some kind of pavilion or building to meet in. In other places, however, the work is very much underground and secretive. Some church planters have been martyred or imprisoned. Still, many people are discovering the difference in following Jesus, receiving hope and a true Spirit.

As a personal reflection, I think of my own experience. I was raised in the church. It was mainline, so not especially evangelical, but we learned the Bible, so I had some of that background. Even as an English major in college, we were required to study the King James Bible as literature. When I began to encounter people who spoke of a personal relationship with God and spoke of the Holy Spirit as operating today, I could see some truth in what they said. Eventually I—alone, not in a church setting—confessed Jesus as Lord (I used the word boss), the Holy Spirit came upon me, and my life has not been the same.

Though not an evangelist, I have had the opportunity to pray with a few people to receive Jesus the way I did. In each case, they were attending a Bible study, just as Trousdale describes. Somehow, they had become interested, and the person of Jesus had become appealing. They wanted Him, too.

Trousdale notes that the Bible studies are presented primarily as stories. People everywhere like stories. Even postmodernists who are skeptical about everything except power note the effectiveness of narrative. The stories are presented in such a way not simply to say that here is a story of Moses or Abraham or Jesus, but to promote action. What ought we to do if we consider this story? Too often Western Christianity tells about God, but minimizes actions we must take. As James wrote: “But be doers of the word and not hearers only…” (James 1:22).

Yes, Mr. Trousdale is onto something. Read this book.

Curtis E. Jennings. Western Christianity? All That?! Vantage, 2003.

Western Christianity? All That?! is a topical overview of the history of Christianity in Europe and the Americas. The title suggests the humorous historical satire 1066 and All That, but this is a serious book that can be helpful to readers, especially lay readers who may have never studied church history but want to know how we got to where we are.

Western Christianity? is arranged differently from most history books. Each of its ten chapters covers a different topic. This can help a reader who is looking for a specific item. For example, I might have been reading about Nestorian churches in medieval China. I would look in the chapter titled “Doctrine” to find out what Nestorius believed. We also read, for example, how both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches came to be organized in a manner similar to the political kingdoms of the day in the chapter “Organization.”

Other chapters cover Women, Church-State relations, the Reformation, Liturgy, Music, Art, Architecture, and Holy Orders. Each chapter is 12-20 pages, so this is an overview. It is helpful to readers looking for basic background material. The author has a detailed bibliography and often in the text refers to works where the reader can find more details on the subject.

Alert readers may have noticed that this is published by what used to be the primary American self-publishing house. Jennings is a college professor, and had this been an academic work, he probably would have found an academic publisher. Unfortunately, like many self-published works there are a number of spelling and grammar errors that in some cases change the intended meaning. Speaking from experience, I often re-read pages I have written on this blog and nearly half the time make a correction. We miss things when we become familiar with what we have written. It does help to have outside editors or proofreaders to make sure it says exactly what you want it to say.