Neal Stephenson. Termination Shock. Morrow, 2021.

Readers of this blog know that we are fans of Neal Stephenson. His forte is to imagine scenarios in the not too distant future (sometimes connected with the past) with technology that is “out there” but more realistic than typical science fiction. Termination Shock has that, but it is much more reminiscent of Tom Clancy than Stephenson’s other work.

Let me illustrate. The Hunt for Red October involved numerous people from various places around the world. The focus was on a submarine with a new technology for propulsion. This technology, in theory, made Red October faster and quieter, virtually impossible to detect. There was a critical political element and both the military and intelligence services got involved.

On the surface, Termination Shock is like that, too. Only here, instead of a conflict between or among nations, the conflict is initially against global warming. A wealthy Texan, T. R. Schmidt, a.k.a. T. R. McHooligan, has purchased desert land in West Texas along the Rio Grande and has developed a system that he thinks will alleviate rising temperatures on the earth. Stephenson imagines that the world has gotten hotter and that sea levels are rising.

From what we understand, people worry about melting ice caps needlessly. Ice floats on water. It is less dense. Melting sea ice would not affect the water level of the oceans any more than melting ice in a glass of water would cause the glass to overflow. Our understanding between those who worry about sea levels and those who do not is how much water would come from land sources like melting glaciers and if that would make any significant difference. (See our review of Inconvenient Facts).

If sea levels rise, one country that could seriously be affected is the Netherlands. Indeed, one of our main characters is Frederika Saskia (“call me Saskia”) Queen of the Netherlands. She is invited along with some people from various other countries to witness T. R.’s plan. A side business of oil drilling often is sulfur extraction. The Dutch royal family also is a major stockholder of Royal Dutch Shell Oil.

We also meet Rufus, who hunts feral pigs, which have become a nuisance in Texas, as a pig exterminator. He gets hired by T.R. and crosses paths with the queen. He is an army veteran who looks African-American, and he does have that ancestry, but he is also an enrolled member of the Comanche tribe.

There is Bo, an Chinese acquaintance of Willem, an advisor to the Queen. Bo is probably some kind of spy. Willem is partly Dutch but his family comes from Indonesia so he has Malay and Chinese ancestry as well. Indeed, by showing how ethnically diverse some individual are, this book reminds us how much more we have in common with one another.

A person who seems outside of the plot for much of the story—a common technique in Clancy tales—is Laks. He is from British Columbia (Stephenson could not keep away from the Pacific Northwest entirely!) but of Sikh ancestry. One could say he was the other kind of Indian, not like Rufus. He has gone to India and become skilled in gatka, a traditional stick fighting martial art from the Punjab and perfected by the Sikhs.

As usual, Stephenson is clever without being precious. Laks goes to the China-India Line of Actual Control. They do not call it a border. There has been a truce and the line between the two countries can fluctuate. According to Stephenson control is determined by nonlethal martial arts. (There had been no casualties along the line for many years when some deadly skirmishes broke out in 2020.) Laks is very clever with the gatka until Chinese Havana-Syndrome technology slows him down.

T.R.’s method of cooling the earth is clever and reasonable. He periodically sends rockets into the air to release sulfur in the high atmosphere. The effect is similar to the cooling effect caused by a large volcano eruption. He calls his program Pina2bo for obvious reasons (see Mt. Pinatubo).

This is something that other nations watch. Does it affect their weather? If so, what will they do about it? Australia and Europe like it. India claims it is negatively affecting its monsoon cycle. With all its coal-fired power plants and industry, China is looking for something to get them off the hook. In this tale, Chinese imperial designs are directed towards the Indonesian half of New Guinea (a.k.a. Irian Jaya), where T. R. and Dutch investors have a large copper mine.

I thought it was interesting that T.R.’s rockets are propelled by a mixture of sulfur and methane. That is similar to the model rockets my high school rocket club used which had fuel of sulfur and carbon powder. I was happy to learn from this novel that in the near future, hobbyists still use Estes rockets, the maker of fueled model rockets back in the sixties.

I found it interesting that China was quite involved in this story. When I was working in China, the government would seed clouds to cause it to rain. That was seen as a way of alleviating air pollution. (Where I was, the sky was yellow, not blue, on many days.) It is not much of a stretch to imagine something similar to cool things down.

One difference from Tom Clancy is that the United States government has little to do with this story. T.R. is in a remote area in Texas, so his rockets do not interfere with any airplane flights. While not post-apocalyptic like The Road, Termination Shock speculates that the United States was “once like an omnipotent hyperpower” but now seemed “like a beached whale.” (96)

In the long run, though, it is not so much that the American government is powerless, it is simply that there is still more freedom and creativity in America than just about anywhere else. T.R. is left alone—at least by his own government. Without going into spoiler mode, this novel reminds us that there are some things that only the government can do. It has a scale that individuals do no have when it comes to protecting life, liberty, and property.

Speaking of whales, there are a few allusions to Moby-Dick which are fun. At one point Rufus, out on the West Texas range, takes care of a mustang that had once been tame. He called it Peleg after one of the ship owners in Moby-Dick. But everyone confuses the name with Pegleg. Even when he explains the name is from Melville’s novel, people still think of Pegleg because Captain Ahab had a peg leg.

Rufus compares himself to the harpooners in Moby-Dick. They have to be good a throwing harpoons just as he has to be good at shooting wild hogs. For example, he observes this about the novel:

For all the complicated operations described in the book, the basics were simple as could be: they rowed out in a boat so that a guy could chuck a spear into the whale. Guys who were good at chucking the spear made bank. Boat-rowers were a dime a dozen and had to supplement their measly income by going home and writing huge novels. (26)

Rufus kills his “Moby Dick” at the beginning of the story. In his case, we mean a 600-lb. wild boar that killed his daughter. What would Ahab have done if he had caught the whale? What if the novel started that way? Rufus, then, is recognized by others for his accomplishment. Ahab is recognized, too, but not in the same way.

While Stephenson’s novels are often very creative, many of his stories leave a lot of loose ends. Cryptonomicon, for example, was very creative and made readers use their imaginations. But its plot just kind of wound down. Termination Shock wraps things up pretty well. Sure, maybe we would like to find out more about the Dutch royal family, but Termination Shock certainly illustrates that any serious or realistic human attempt to affect the weather presents many unintended consequences. I suppose, one could say that about science in general…

P.S. Since writing the above review I read two articles that may shed a little light on Termination Shock and where Stephenson was coming from. One article noted that Elon Musk owns a large parcel of land in Texas on the Mexican border. He certainly could be a figure that inspired T. R. Another noted that only one city in the world has more Sikh residents than Vancouver, B.C. That makes Laks’ story all the more likely. J. B.

Other Works by Neal Stephenson reviewed here:

Quicksilver
The Confusion
The System of the World
Interface
Fall
Zodiac
Seveneves
The Diamond Age
The Big U
Everything and More (sort of)

John Hagee and Sandy Hagee Parker. When the Righteous Rule. Second ed., Inprov, 2020.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. The Gathering Storm. Nelson, 2020.

When the Righteous Rule and The Gathering Storm are very similar. We happened to have received copies of both around the same time. While it is an oversimplification to say that if you have read one, you have read the other, most readers could probably get by with reading just one.

Both writers are in ministries that keep up to some degree with current events. We have reviewed other books by Hagee on these pages. Hagee is mostly interested in Bible prophecy. His attention is often on Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East because these appear in biblical prophecies that have not been fulfilled yet. When the Righteous Rule is a bit different.

When the Righteous Rule gets its title from Proverbs 29:2 (KJV), “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” So Hagee observes some current trends in the American government that he would say were unrighteous.

This was written before the Covid remote learning experience where many families were upset and even appalled at things their children were being taught in schools. His greatest concern was probably on not just the breakdown but attacks on the family. This, of course, included the need to promote a mother and father raising their children together. While Christians have no one to blame but themselves for their own divorce rate, current emphases dismissing and downplaying parenthood and the family are of concern.

Hagee points out the well-documented statistics about children, especially boys, raised in single parent households. Yet our welfare system discourages marriage, abortion encourages promiscuity, and the general culture often treats children as a nuisance or afterthought and men as simply ridiculous, if not predators. He goes back to Marx, quoting him about the necessity for breaking up the family so the “dictatorship of the proletariat” can control things.

Other issues he deals with are abortion, work, justice, and Israel. He notes that justice is judicial. When people speak of social or economic injustice, they are dealing with something beyond government. He quotes Thomas Sowell:

Slippery use of the word “privilege” is part of a vogue of calling achievements “privileges”—a vogue which extends far beyond educational issues, spreading a toxic confusion in many other aspects of life. (48)

A lot of Hagee’s book deals with questions of language: What people are saying, and how they are using words to hide the effects of their practices.

Hagee probably is most comfortable when he is writing about Israel and the surprising growing anti-Semitism in the world. American members of Congress are saying things about Jews that a mere twenty years ago would have brought down censure and media outrage—if they had even been able to get elected in the first place.

We are observing right now people of all persuasions upset for one reason or another at our governments, especially our Federal leadership. Hagee does look to the Bible for commentary on these different issues. God’s righteousness is not necessarily the same as man’s understanding, but the Bible is clear about what God says. Hagee encourages his readers to pray, vote, and take action as the Lord leads. It is possible to have the Lord change things if His people act.

In the other book we are reviewing, Mohler deliberately takes his title from the first volume of Winston Churchill’s history of World War II. Churchill’s The Gathering Storm is about the rise of Fascism and Communism in the 1930s and how few in Europe were concerned about it. Churchill himself was out of power most of that decade in spite of his experience as a high naval official because no one wanted to pay attention to him. Interestingly, just this week I saw a political cartoon comparing an American leader to Prime Minister Chamberlain.

Many things in the “storm” are things that Hagee also brings up. Mohler is a seminary president and keeps a blog on current events. Occasionally I hear him quoted in the news. Generally, Mohler’s book is a little more direct and current in its use of sources. He is not just presenting a principle, he is demonstrating what different political and cultural leaders and ”influencers” actually believe and are promoting. This was written during the 2020 primaries and before the general election, so there is no indication of Vice President Biden either being nominated or winning the election.

Mohler speaks of some of the same issues as Hagee: life, marriage, the family, the culture. He also notes that those Americans under 35 or so tend to have a much greater faith in government and more radical policies to solve problems. This, he suggests, is cultural, especially for those influenced by the educational system and the media.

He also goes into more detail about issues of gender and religious liberty. We recall that in one of his most famous speeches, Abraham Lincoln noted that the pro-slavery side did not want to debate the issue. Slavery was part of the government and culture and was “settled.” They wanted abolitionists to shut up and to agree with them. We see the same thing happening today on any number of issues such as the family, gender, abortion.

I recall having a conversation in 2015 with a person who was living in Brazil. I expressed concern about the Supreme Court ruling legalizing so-called gay marriage. The person in Brazil assured me it was no big deal. They had had it in Brazil for about ten years and people have agreed to disagree. Both sides understand that not everyone recognizes it, but there is tolerance. Alas, that has not been the case in the United States. People have been sued and even arrested for saying that they did not believe in gay marriage. We often seen activists putting the terms Freedom of Speech and Religious Liberty in scare quotes, illustrating that they indeed do not understand the concept of tolerance which was so important to the founding of our country.

This week, as I was reading these two books, I read a couple of secular editorials dealing with similar issues. Both quoted a pundit in 1950 who said back then that the culture war was over and the left wing had won. Even in the 1930s, Ken Burns relates that Ernest Hemingway told John Dos Passos not to write anything critical of the Communists or he would be blacklisted by the publishing industry. Dos Passos did, and he was.

One of the editorials quoted a well-known pundit today who said that the left assumes it will always win. Part of that may come from Marxist theory that Communism is inevitable according to the dialectic. I wonder, though, if part of it comes from that theological position, common in the West, which the author of the last book we reviewed criticized: Not that atheism and totalitarianism would triumph, but that the world would just get worse and worse as God’s power was dispensed.

The other editorial noted, though, that it is possible to turn things around. The American Left is agitated because of the Supreme Court. It just assumed that the court would always take their side as they have done since the mid-sixties, yet a few recent cases suggest otherwise. God calls all of us to repent. Why can’t government officials? Why can’t courts? Why can’t media moguls?

Yes, there may be a storm coming. In some ways it has been on us since at least the 1930s. But God is not finished with His creation yet. Jesus still has the authority to say to the storm, “Peace! Be still!” (See Mark 4:39) True justice and righteousness come from him anyhow. Why base our thinking or our system on anyone else?

Bill Johnson. When Heaven Invades Earth. Treasure House, 2003.

Recently I have been reading and reviewing a number of Christian books. All appear to want to reader to think about things a little differently. A Journey to Hell, Heaven, and Back wants to get the reader to not only think about his or her eternal destiny but how authentic our Christian beliefs and practices are. The Power of Favor encourages us to put more trust in the goodness of God. When Heaven Invades Earth, if anything, has an even stronger message. Is the Lord trying to tell me something?

The Kindle edition, which we reviewed, begins with a number of endorsements. Two stood out because of who they were from: James Goll and Heidi Baker. Goll is a Bible teacher who had an influence on one of the people who mentored me. Heidi Baker is best known for an international ministry to orphans. Since this book was written in 2003, one of the endorsements was from a person whose ministry has endured some scandal and whose judgment may be questioned. Those are chances we take.

Indeed, Johnson encourages the reader to take some risks—not blind leaps, but acts of faith based on the Bible. Faith, after all, simply means taking someone at their word. Biblical faith means taking the Bible at its face value, in other words, taking God at His word.

Johnson believes in the miraculous for two reasons: It is promised in the Bible, and he has witnessed it. When Heaven Invades Earth challenges the view that God no longer acts supernaturally. First, then, he deals with this limited theological outlook. We note that this is typically Western. For example, Heidi Baker is in the third or fourth generation of family members working in overseas missions. Her family has witnessed miracles in “less developed” countries for a hundred years. Sometimes we hear of such things, and people will qualify it by saying, “That was on the mission field,” as if those of us in a more secular culture do not need the Holy Spirit. If such things happen in India or Mozambique, why can they not happen in North America or Europe?

I bear witness that they do happen, though they seem to many of us few and far between. Last month in my own church the Lord restored the hearing of man who was deaf in one ear. Now both ears are hearing fine. Johnson challenges us to expect these things.

While When Heaven Invades Earth includes testimonies, most of it is Bible teaching. One simple example to get us thinking:

He [Jesus] performed miracles, wonders, and signs, as a man in right relationship to God…not as God. If he performed miracles because He was God, then they would be unattainable for us. But if He did them as a man, I am responsible to pursue His lifestyle. Recapturing this simple truth changes everything…and makes possible a full restoration of the ministry of Jesus in His Church. (220, italics and ellipses in original)

Johnson reminds us of the salvation story. Man was given authority over the earth but ceded it to the devil when he sinned. But now, Jesus, the Second Adam, “Through His sacrifice He has successfully dealt with the power and effect of sin for all who believe” (225). If we are established in a relationship with God through the New Covenant, we have the Holy Spirit and the authority of His Kingdom.

Indeed, Johnson notes that biblical prophecies often contradict what contemporary theology says. Many Christians in the West teach that things are going to get worse and worse in the world till it becomes something irredeemable as it was before the Flood. But Jesus tells us that the Gospel will be shared with the whole world before the end comes (See Matthew 24:14). That sounds like the Church at the end of the age will have to be strong in order to accomplish that.

While Johnson clearly goes into more detail, his point is not to criticize, but to inspire and encourage. He notes that repentance means “a change of thinking.” When we repent, then we can begin to relate to God and see the possibilities of His Kingdom. Jesus’ basic message was “Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).

This is not just a heavenly mandate to have happy thoughts. Obeying this command is possible only for those who surrender to the grace of God. The renewed mind is the result of a surrendered heart. (331)

There is a tendency or temptation to see the Christian life in terms of positive thinking. That is a factor, but Johnson is saying that that idea is simplistic. We can have positive thoughts and be positively wrong. The question is this: Are we thinking like God? Are we dealing with secret sin? Are we trusting in the New Covenant and God’s promises through that?

If there is a focus to this book, it simply the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Do we understand the scope and authority of His Kingdom? Can God use us to see that His will is done here as is is done in heaven? That, indeed, is where even the title comes from. God calls us to bring heavenly conditions to earth. We understand that there is a spiritual battle and that “in the world ye shall have tribulation,” but isn’t it possible to bring Jesus’ power to bear in this present world?

The Bible instructs us to turn our attention toward the invisible. This theme is repeated enough in Scripture to make those of us bound by the logic of this Western culture quite nervous. (427)

Now God does say, “Come let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18) but He also acknowledges “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). This suggests, too, the need for repentance. Lord, may your ways be my ways.

When Heaven Invades Earth deals with questions of evil and troubles in this world. Johnson is no Pollyanna.

A woman who needed a miracle once told me that she felt God had allowed her sickness for a purpose. I told her that if I treated my children that way I’d be arrested for child abuse. She agreed and eventually allowed me to pray for her. After truth came into her heart, her healing came minutes later. (450)

The apostle Paul states that what you see is temporal, and what you cannot see is eternal [see 2 Corinthians 4:18]. Unbelief is faith in the inferior. (452)

Alas, he notes that, at least in the West,

Most of the goals of the modern church can be accomplished without God. All we need is people, money, and a common objective. Determination can achieve great things. But success is not necessarily a sign that the goal was from God. Little exists in church life to ensure that we are being directed by the Holy Spirit. Returning to the ministry of Jesus is the only insurance we have of accomplishing such a goal. (479)

With this comes a warning: “Unbelief is safe because it takes no risk and almost always gets what it expects.” (545)

There is much more. The book deals with personal issues as well as who the Holy Spirit is and what it will really take to accomplish Matthew 24:17 as we saw above. Jesus said, “All authority is mine on heaven and earth.” (Matthew 28:18) Lord, help us (me included) embrace that reality. Amen.

N.B.: As noted above, this review is of a Kindle edition, so references are to Kindle locations, not page numbers.

Stuart Gibbs. Poached. Simon & Schuster, 2014.

“I never would have been accused of stealing the koala if Vance Jessup hadn’t made me drop a human arm in the shark tank.”

That is the opening sentence of Poached. If that does not get the reader’s attention, nothing will. Yes, Poached is for younger or YA (young adult) readers and is very much in the vein of Gordon Korman. It is funny, exciting, mostly realistic, and exotic. Good stuff.

Teddy Fitzroy’s parents both work for FunJungle, a large zoo and theme park in central Texas. Teddy knows his way around there as well. He has two problems: (1) He enjoys a good prank and (2) Vance Jessup, the junior high bully, fifteen but in the eighth grade.

Besides the bully Jessup, he has developed another antagonist. Just as Sergeant Inspector Blair hates Hamish Macbeth even though Macbeth has helped Blair solve numerous crimes, so FunJungle’s head of security Marjorie O’Malley, a.k.a. Large Marge, bears an animus towards twelve-year-old Teddy in spite of his help in solving the mystery surrounding the death of one of the zoo’s hippos.

So the prank that Teddy pulls off at Vance’s instigation leads to him being a prime suspect when Kazoo the Koala is stolen from the zoo.

This is serious. Koalas are rarely rented to zoos outside of Australia. They are never sold and not allowed to stay out of Australia for very long. Kazoo, for example, was rented for six months for almost a million dollars a month. This theft, then, could create a great financial loss for the zoo and put it in the middle of an international incident.

Not only that, Koalas only eat certain types of eucalyptus leaves which are not found outside of Australia. Without a proper diet, the cute marsupial would die in four or five days.

When Teddy’s figure is seen on a security video inside the Koala’s display after hours, he is in a world of trouble.

Poached tells of the adventures that Teddy has trying to solve the mystery while being a prime suspect. Other people involved include Kristi, the cute docent who tells visitors all about Kazoo; Bubba Stackhouse, a policeman who works with Marge; Xavier, Teddy’s best friend; Tracy Boyd, director of operations at FunJungle; J. J. McCracken, billionaire owner of FunJungle; Summer, J. J.’s daughter and friend of Teddy who attends a boarding school two thirds of the way across the country; various bullies, jocks, and cheerleaders of Lyndon Johnson Middle School; the ex-con who dresses in a lizard or koala suit at the zoo; a mysterious man in an orange hat who seems to show up whenever disasters are happening; a very temperamental chimpanzee that workers at the zoo have nicknamed Furious George; among others.

Teddy gets arrested more than once. Not only does he have to deal with the school bullies (Vance has his buddies including twins known collectively as TimJim), but Teddy has to convince the authorities he is innocent. It is clear that Teddy has no idea where the koala bear is, but who else could have lifted it? And why?

There are chases, an explosion in the shark tank, disguises, and multiple other complications. Even though this is a mystery with serious consequences, there is also lots of humor, as even the opening line tells us. This book is YA fun. Just as we did with Korman, I suspect we will from time to time read some other FunJungle books. I suspect other readers will feel the same way after reading one.

Joel Osteen. The Power of Favor. FaithWords, 2019.

From what I can gather, Joel Osteen can be a controversial figure. I have been told by at least two people that Osteen is unsound. I confess I do not recall ever hearing him preach—we live in New England, so Christian media are not too big here—and until now I had never read any of his books. Forty years ago when I worked in a bookstore, I recall reading a book by his father, John Osteen. I believe that book was helpful at the time, but who knows what the son will be like?

The Power of Favor from this reader’s perspective is very biblical. It is a collection of stories or testimonies, usually the story of a contemporary experience paralleled with a story from the Bible. The theme, obviously, is favor.

The premise is simply that God shows favor towards His people. It does not mean that they will not have hard times, but that God will promote them even as He takes them through hard times. An example Osteen uses more than once is Joseph, son of Jacob. Yes, Joseph had favor from both his own father and from God. His brothers did not like that and sold him into slavery.

Joseph found favor with his master and became steward of his household. Unfortunately for him, his master’s lascivious wife also liked him but not in an honorable way. He spent years in prison. Nevertheless, he continued to trust God, and God granted him favor with his jailers and eventually even with the Pharaoh.

There are many stories like this in The Power of Favor. We read about Mary, the other Joseph, Nehemiah, David, Daniel, Ruth, Esther, and others. Osteen notes that in some cases people even found favor with their enemies. We begin to see a biblical pattern in the stories Osteen tells. The result is encouragement. That is the great takeaway from reading this book: It was written to encourage. If we begin to have a sense of how much the Lord loves us and looks out for us, we can be encouraged.

In all fairness, while Osteen notes that favor can result in wealth, as in Abraham, or power, as with David or Nehemiah, those are not to be the focus. Such things, if they happen, are blessings. Let’s be honest, people can get discouraged. I certainly do. But if they can begin to see things from God’s eternal perspective, they can begin to discern the big picture. God is faithful. God keeps His word. God is love.

After reading this book, I said to myself that I ought to read it again. I need to be encouraged. I am a thinker and a teacher. Both types tend toward melancholy. But I know what God is like. When the poet in Psalm 143 says he is overwhelmed, he follows that by saying, “I meditate on all your works, I muse on the work of your hands.” (See Psalm 143:4-5). He remembers what God is like!

Years ago I read Bob Buess’s Favor: The Road to Success. I sometimes give that book as a graduation gift. I found that a helpful book. I wondered how Osteen’s book would compare. Buess mostly quotes and analyzes specific verses and passages from the Bible and applies them. I have found it most encouraging to consult it from time to time.

Osteen’s The Power of Favor tells stories. In that sense, it is more readable. Buess is more for people who like to pick apart Bible verses and get all they can out of them. Osteen is for one who likes stories. As much as I like to read for detail and even enjoy poetry, I know that most people like to hear stories. Osteen’s book is a little longer but the stories will stick.

This perhaps gets me thinking why some people have honest problems with Osteen (I am not talking about jealousy or envy here, but honest difficulties). Romans 12:3-8 tells us about gifts that God has given people. These are often referred to as motivational gifts; they are the created impulses that motivate people’s personalities. Two of those gifts are teaching and exhorting or encouraging. These two motivations are often at odds.

The teacher likes to analyze things. The Bible teacher is usually interested in the original languages. He is motivated by getting people to discover truth. The encourager is interested in helping people along the way. They are motivated by giving people hope. We need both kinds of people in our lives. We need truth and hope.

The problem comes in the church because these two personality types can be at odds. We see this in the conflict between Paul and Barnabas over Mark in Acts 15:37-40. Paul was the teacher. He could apply so much of the Hebrew Scriptures to the New Covenant because he knew them so well. He studied in the most highly esteemed Jewish school of its day. To him, the young John Mark was becoming a hindrance.

Barnabas was actually Joseph the Levite’s nickname. It means “son of encouragement.” It seems everyone recognized this gift in him. He wanted to continue to work with Mark. He was the encourager. He would likely be less strict. He could see potential in Mark. All Paul could see was someone who was less rigorous. The Bible commends both Paul and Barnabas. They had different gifts. One gift was not better than the other, nor was one a more superior disciple. They each contributed to the people of God in their own way.

Osteen is more like Barnabas. I am a teacher. I love good teaching as much as anything. But like John Mark, I can certainly use encouragement. So can most people. Osteen delivers.

Ivan Tuttle. A Journey to Hell, Heaven, and Back. It’s Supernatural P, 2020.

From time to time I have written about testimonies of near death experiences (NDE). This one is perhaps the most direct and specific one that I have read. Sid Roth wrote the foreword. I do not know Roth personally, but a person I truly respect did know him and spoke very highly of him. If Roth acknowledged the writer and his story, it probably is reliable.

The reader of A Journey to Hell, Heaven, and Back can guess from the title what it is going to be about. The only question is whether it is fictional like The Divine Comedy or whether it describes a personal experience like that of Eben Alexander. In this case, it is the second.

When he was twenty-six years old in 1978, the author had a blood clot that caused him to spend two weeks in the hospital. His lifestyle at the time—alcohol, drugs, little sleep—aggravated his condition. The night he got home from the hospital he fell asleep early, and about 9:20 p.m. he was dragged to hell.

Some of his descriptions are ones that anyone familiar with the Bible might recognize: people screaming, a terrible stench, and an overall feeling of hopelessness. Dante wrote that the gate of hell had a sign over it that read “Abandon all hope, ye who enter.” That seems to be a recurring theme. If hell is eternal, then people there have no hope—a very serious consideration to us who are living.

Tuttle describes people and evil spirits he encounters there. He says that nearly everyone recognized the justice of their punishment, but a number had real regrets, especially those who were in the church and even pastors but who had secret sins. We must recall that Jesus had his strongest words to religious hypocrites. This is a reminder. I also could not help but think of a piece from Jonathan Edwards where he imagines someone in hell saying:

If we could speak with them, and inquire of them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and when they used to hear about hell, ever to be the subjects of misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another reply, “No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself: I thought my scheme good…Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon me.” (Edwards 1.10)

Tuttle devotes two chapters to what he experienced in hell. It is, indeed, very sobering. It certainly forced me to pray and consider again as the Psalmist prayed,

Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my anxieties, and see if there is any wicked way in me…(Psalm 139:23-24 NKJV).

Tuttle knew that he deserved hell. I had a friend who was a biker and, though not a member, used to ride with different gangs. He was in a motorcycle accident and was clinically dead on the operating table for about ten minutes. Very much like Tuttle, he felt a hand grab him and start pulling him down. He said to himself, “I am going to hell.” He was not afraid. He accepted it because he knew he deserved it. Fortunately for him, the doctors got his heart beating again and he survived. About a year later, he became a Christian.

Tuttle had made a confession of Christ when he was a boy, but he was not living like it when he was in his twenties. He makes a number of observations, but generally simply says “You must be vigilant.” As Jesus said:

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.” (Matthew 25:13 NKJV)

According to Amazon Kindle, one part that has been frequently highlighted by readers sums up his appraisal of his experience:

The biggest lies are “once saved, always saved” and “extreme grace”! This is spreading at an alarming rate in the world today. These lies are sending more people to hell than atheism. God does forgive you of your sins, but if you keep sinning, you don’t get a “get out of hell free” card. The Bible says in First Corinthians 6:9-10:

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (61)

Ah, but there is a contrast. As suggested in the title, Tuttle was then removed from hell and taken to heaven.

All of a sudden I heard a voice like mighty roar of thunder that said, “It is not his time yet. His mother has been praying for him since he was a little boy. You must release him now; I made a promise!” (65)

It must have been a perfect relief for him! Like others who have had an NDE and were taken to heaven, he did not want to leave. He acknowledged that he had been taken to heaven to observe and tell about what he saw. He did not make his experience public until 2010. He said at that point the Lord allowed him to reveal some things. For this 2020 edition, he says, he was allowed to reveal a few more things, but there are still things he may never reveal. He reminds us that when John went to heaven and wrote the book of Revelation, there were some things he saw that he was not allowed to share. (153, see, for example Revelation 10:4)

Interestingly, much of Tuttle’s experience in heaven involved healing the relationship between him and his father. His father was of the World War II generation who believed that men should not show emotions. His father also beat him frequently. He also notes that in heaven it seemed that he knew everything about the people and things he was seeing. This reminded me of I Corinthians 13:12 when it tells that when perfection comes,

Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I am known.

Reminiscent of John’s experience also, Tuttle was shown things in the future. He admits he might be a little unclear, and he also tells us that he was not permitted to share some things yet. He tells of seeing many people with small keyboards like typewriters that they were carrying with them. In 1978 he had no idea what they were; now he sees that they were laptop computers, pad computers, and the like. He suggests that the technology will continue to advance.

While his stay in hell was sobering, to say the least, his impression of heaven was one of optimism, not only because of eternity there but because of what he saw God doing on earth. It was reminiscent again of Revelation:

He who is unjust. let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still. (Revelation 22:11)

The Lord will not leave His people comfortless!

My challenge to reader, especially the skeptical reader of this blog: Read this book and see for yourself. Ask God to show you if it is basically true or not. Check it out. Be prepared to repent and rejoice—both.

Work Cited
Edwards, Jonathan. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” 1741. The Writings of Jonathan Edwards, 29 Dec. 1997, http://www.jonathan-edwards.org/Sinners.pdf. Accessed 14 Nov. 2021.

Robert L. Dilenschneider. Nailing It. Citadel P, 2022.

Robert Dilenschneider has authored a number of books we would categorize as motivational or life coaching. We have reviewed his Decisions on these pages. Nailing It follows the format of Decisions. Once again, we have a group of famous people, twenty-five altogether, and decisions that they made that affected their lives. In this case the people all made decisions while in their twenties that would send them in the direction that made them famous.

Interestingly, the two French women described here both came from poverty and broken homes. Both were basically trying to survive on the streets and perhaps exploited others the way they had been exploited to get ahead. Also they are known best by pseudonyms or stage names rather than their real name. Edith Piaf was given her last name by a cabaret producer: Piaf means “sparrow”—an appropriate name for a singer. Coco Chanel also spent time as a cabaret singer as well as a seamstress. Her nickname came from another bird. They said her singing was like the crowing of a rooster. In English we say cock-a-doodle-doo for their sound; in French they say co-co-ri-co. If Piaf’s life were in America, we would call her life and music the blues.

The oldest person in Nailing It’s Hall of Fame is Mozart. He was already a musical prodigy, but decisions he made in his twenties would direct his career and secure his fame. We also read about dancers Maria Tallchief and Rudolf Nureyev. Nureyev’s big decision, obviously, was his decision to defect from the Soviet Union. Like other defectors—Dilenschneider mentions Baryshnikov and Balanchine—he did not do it for political reasons but simply to be free.

Lest it appear that all the examples are from the musical arts, Dilenschneider tells of many others like Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Ulysses Grant, Gold Meir, Jackie Robinson, Steve Jobs, Audrey Hepburn, Sally Ride, and Christa McAuliffe.

In some cases, the figures required great courage. For example, both Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson were going against the culture. We see Rickey’s anger at segregation back when he was in his twenties. Once when a black player on his team was refused a hotel room, Rickey shared his room with him. Most of us are aware of difficulties Robinson had to overcome as well. Both men were motivated by their Christian beliefs to do their part for equality.

Steve Jobs was already a millionaire at twenty-five, but he also had to deal with changes taking place in electronics and, specifically, at Apple, the company he helped found. Audrey Hepburn came from European nobility, but her family lost everything in World War II. Akio Morita was groomed to inherit his family’s four hundred year old food business, but he went into engineering instead. How the founder of Sony dealt with his father honestly but respectfully can be a model for many.

Another heir, Brazilian Roberto Marinho, was expected one day to take over his father’s newspaper. He had just been working for the paper a short time when his father suddenly died. How he turned his business into a communications empire is impressive.

Like the two French ladies, others had to overcome great odds. It took a lot for Helen Keller to be accepted to and graduate from Radcliffe. She could not have done it without the selfless help of Anne Sullivan. Maya Angelou overcame a background of poverty and abuse to become a noted author and poet.

In other words, there are a variety of people, places, and circumstances, but decisions we make in our early adult years can and often will set the direction of our lives for better or worse. Like Decisions, Nailing It might make an appropriate gift for a someone graduating from college. It does not inspire by platitude or slogan but by example.

Great American Road Trips: National Parks. Edited by Editors of Country, Reader’s Digest, 2021.

This is a companion to Great American Road Trips: Scenic Drives and, if anything, is even better. The book uses the same format as the first one with color pictures on virtually every page and first person accounts by a variety of people. In some cases the photographers are the writers but not always.

Some of the photographs in Great American Road Trips: National Parks are stunning. A reason for that is simply that many of national parks themselves are visually stunning—think of the Grand Canyon, for example. But many of the photos are not merely photos of popular sites; they are done with exceptional skill and, sometimes, serendipity. There is one photograph of the Grand Canyon, for example, taken near sunset with a distant thunderstorm and lightning bolt. It looks like a painting by John Martin or someone from the Hudson Valley School.

The descriptions are also helpful. Although we may not think about it, I was not surprised to read that Big Bend National Park along the Rio Grande in Texas has recorded more bird species than any other national park. After all, Roger Tory Peterson wrote a field guide each for Eastern and Western North American birds and then decided he had to make a third one just for the birds of Texas.

Some of the descriptions are anecdotal. Some are written by people who visit the same park every year. Others share their discoveries with the reader as something new-found. The account of a retired woman’s hike into the Grand Canyon borders on a survival story. It makes for exciting reading not unlike the Reader’s Digest‘s True Life Adventure tales.

This reviewer lives in the Northeast, and there is really only one National Park as such in the region, Acadia in Maine. There are some seashores and monuments and historical parks, but only Acadia north of Virginia and east of Michigan. However, I have visited some of the other parks when we have been able to, but none of the famous ones in the West. The only time in my life when I was in Wyoming, Yellowstone was closed for the winter. Still, the descriptions of Shenandoah, Olympic, Volcano, and Acadia were accurate and helpful. I felt the Everglades got a cursory treatment, but not everyone travels for the birds. In spite of that, the Everglades photos were lovely.

Great American Road Trips—National Parks includes even the parks that are out of the way for many like Denali, Big Bend, Volcano, and Virgin Islands National Parks. Even if we cannot visit each one, we can surely appreciate them by the accounts and photographs in this beautiful book.

Jack Frost. Experiencing Father’s Embrace. Destiny Image, 2002. [References are Kindle locations, not page numbers.]

The popular/infamous/weird television show Lost had an episode titled “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues.” Most of us do have daddy issues, at least to some extent, even if we are lousy cowboys. If you are willing to admit this, take a look at this book.

Experiencing Father’s Embrace was written for today’s culture. Since the 1950s fathers have been mocked on television, dismissed by feminists, and suspected by Freudians. Still, study after study shows that the presence of a father in a family is the single most important factor in raising mentally and socially healthy children.

Still, we know that fathers are not perfect. Even in a family with a father present, there can be problems. Jack Frost transparently tells us of his own journey as a husband and father. Yes, men are driven and competitive. They can be hard on others as well as themselves. As we mature, many of us have to come to terms with things our fathers said or did (or did not say or do).

Experiencing Father’s Embrace can help us do that. Not only does Frost tell of his own experience: a distant father thanks to divorce, his own competitive drive, a self-righteous view of religion—all contributed to his rough people skills. After he converted to Christianity, he knew right from wrong, but that just made him, if anything, a little harder.

Eventually, though, God began dealing with him and he learned both how to deal with his own lack of a father’s love, and learning about and applying his Heavenly Father’s love in his own life and relationships.

There are three parts to this book. The first describes the problems that many people have relating to fathers. He reminds us that it is the devil, the adversary, who is the accuser, who says we will never measure up. That is not the way of God’s love.

Everything Jesus did on earth, including His sacrificial death on the cross, shows us the heart of the Father—a heart of love and compassion, not one of wrath and judgment. (772)

I may have mentioned before that I had a friend who used yellow highlighters to mark things he was reading. Every now and then he would recommend an article or book by saying, “This one is so good, I just wanted to dip the whole page in a bucket of yellow ink.” That is way this book, at least the first two sections of it, come across. This could bring some healing to most readers—healing both internally and in their relationships.

There are lists of helpful things; hopefully, they do not become overwhelming. Readers can take their time. One entry of about a dozen Biblical affirmations begins by saying “I am God’s happy thought!” God really does have a wonderful plan.

The author’s approach is balanced. He understands that repentance means a change in behavior. Like the younger son in the parable of the prodigal son, we can demand something from God from the perspective of a brat. Still, if we see God as a good heavenly Father, we will begin to have a positive relationship with Him and with others.

Indeed, the second section is a teaching on relationships with both earthly and the heavenly fathers based on the story of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:11-32) We need to see that the story is as much about the father as the son. And it is as much about the older son as the one who ran away. Together, they give us a sense of the Father’s heart and provide plenty of opportunity for self-examination.

The older brother has left the father’s house just as surely as the younger son left, and the father realizes that both of his sons need a homecoming. (1343)

The third section may not be for every reader. Assuming the reader has come with the author through the first two sections and is beginning to accept his own identity with the Heavenly Father in spite of and because of his own father, the third second give some direction on living in a family, especially with a spouse and children. This section may not speak much to the single person, but do not write off the first two sections because of that.

One of the lists in the book describes four kinds of fathers. Most fall into one of the categories. Frost then goes on to help the reader understand and deal with each kind of father. He also gives some step by step helps to resolve certain difficulties. There are prayers to use to help or to guide in praying through certain situations. This book can be a big help to many people. As Socrates noted, the examined life is the one worth living.

Jason Lisle. Fractals: The Secret Code of Creation. Master Books, 2021.

In recent years people have become more familiar with the concept of fractals. Fractals are geometric figures that are traced by repeating a formula over and over in a smaller scale each time. Fractals: The Secret Code of Creation gives us some of the formulas and many lovely and colorful illustrations of fractals.

Because fractals are created by repeating an algebraic formula, they could not really be described or even discovered until the invention of the computer. The man who first discovered and wrote about them, Benoit Mandelbrot, worked for IBM.

I first learned about fractals when I was attempting to teach Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. Fractals and other iterating algorithms figure into that tale. A mathematician is trying to explain what an iterating algorithm is to a non-scientist and simply says—alas, typical of some experts in many fields who lack communication skills—“It’s an algorithm that iterates.” In other words, if you are plotting the solution to an algebraic formula containing x, let the solution become the starting point and your new x using the same formula. Try repeating that (iterating) many times and see what you get.

This book illustrates examples of a number of fractals, giving us the formulas and illustrating the results. Though softcover, it is the kind of book that one associates with coffee tables because it is full of color illustrations and photographic quality paper. We begin to see the pattern of fractals in many forms, going into great degrees of magnification.

What became fascinating to people about fractals is that they can be used to describe natural features and phenomena. Around 1980, for example, computer programmers were trying to create a graphical interface for a flight simulator program. They realized that the most realistic way to create graphics of mountains that looked real was with fractals.

We see that fractals can be used to describe or illustrate many other things we see in nature such as lightning, shorelines, river deltas, tree branches, nautilus shells, snowflakes, or fern leaves. This is fascinating, especially illustrated the way Lisle’s book does.

But the book has another purpose other than to introduce us to and illustrate fractals. Fractals are graphed by using what we call imaginary numbers. A little over a hundred years ago, imaginary numbers were simply a mathematical exercise. On an ordinary number line, negative numbers do not have square roots. Both negative and positive numbers when multiplied once by themselves yield a positive number. So 2 × 2 = 4, but also -2 × -2 = 4.

Mathematicians hypothesized imaginary numbers. For the sake of argument, let us say negative one has a square root. It is not on the number line, but let us call it i for imaginary. So i × i = -1. That would mean, then, that 2i × 2i = -4. Now negative numbers have square roots. The math is not too complicated for anyone who has had a year of algebra.

We can plot these imaginary numbers on a plane, rather than a number line, and it looks like the typical x and y axes of algebra. Soon, though, people realized that this kind of algebra helps us graph and solve problems involving waves, especially when describing electricity. These so-called imaginary numbers had a real purpose.

Graphs of fractals also use imaginary numbers. Lisle declares these fractal designs as “the secret code of creation.” He draws a conclusion similar to the one Newton concludes his Principia with. Just as Newton had to use a new mathematical system to help describe gravity and planetary motions, so the discovery (we really cannot say invention) of fractals helps describe many natural phenomena. We see that the universe hangs together using very sophisticated mathematical models. Yet these models are intellectual and thought initially to be abstract. The fact that there is deep math underlying these things demonstrates what Newton affirmed (and as we have quoted elsewhere) that:

This most beautiful system…could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being…This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of His dominion he is wont to be called Lord God pantokrator, Universal Ruler. (Newton 369-370)

In Newton’s day, it was the calculus. Now we have seen how many other abstractions have been used to describe natural phenomena, notably relativity, subatomic wave-particles, probability of habitability, and the apparent eleven dimensions needed for unifying the four known forces. It really appears that behind our existence is a very sophisticated mind.

The more sophisticated the math behind nature, the greater the evidence of the intelligence needed to create it. Random? Hardly. Check it out.

Work Cited

Newton, Sir Isaac. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. 1687. Translated by Andrew Motte and Florian Cajori, 1939; edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952. Great Books of the Western World.