Withstand by Ryan Kimmel & Jonathan Delger

Withstand: The Culture War is a Spiritual Battle

by Ryan Kimmel & Jonathan Delger

 

 

Withstand is Christian non-fiction. The subtitle gives the central premise: that our current culture war is a spiritual battle for Christians. It provides practical advice on how to withstand the weapons of the enemy by donning the “full armor of God” from Ephesians 6:15-17

 

• the belt of truth
• the breastplate of righteousness
• the boots of peace
• the helmet of salvation
• the sword of the Spirit

 

I am a lifelong student of the Bible and found nothing new in this teaching (I’d be dubious if there were something new). But, it has practical applications in our modern context. I found it insightful and helpful.

 

The authors made one all-important point that I feel is sometimes missed in teachings on this subject:

 

Perhaps one of the most effective strategies of the enemy at this cultural moment is to make us think that other people are our enemy.

 

As Christians, the first thing we think of any person we see should be this – there is a person made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Until we see the humanity in people before we see the difference in our politics, we will never be the sort of people needed to bring the message of peace to the world.

 

Amen!

 

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 4-7.

 

 

Two local pastors wrote this short book. I don’t believe it is available through normal outlets, though they may be planning a second printing. More information is available at resoundmedia.cc

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis

     Translated by Rev. William Benham

 

 

The Imitation of Christ is a Christian devotional written anonymously in the early 15th century. Today, it is commonly attributed to Thomas à Kempis, a German-Dutch Catholic priest. It is one of the most widely read Christian works, apart from the Bible.

 

I first learned of this work from a contemporary Christian author who quoted from its text. Then, a fellow believer recommended it, warning that it would challenge my self-perception. Still, later, I learned of noteworthy theologians who thought highly of it.

 

The title alone excites me. It suggests the highest ideal, which I imperfectly aspire to: Christ-likeness. So, I was eager to read this work and had high expectations. However, I was disappointed by certain points and took great exception to one.

 

The author warns about the lure of the world and one’s ego, with little appeal to be like Christ. The author lived and preached a monastic lifestyle and withdrawal from the world, which I cannot reconcile with the Great Commission of Jesus Christ:

 

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you... Matthew 28:19-20

 

Despite these issues, the author made some good points. His words convicted me of my shortcomings in mirroring Christ's ideal. In my prayer life, I often ask the Lord to help me see myself as he sees me. The author gave me much food for thought.

 

However, I have one rather significant issue with the author’s writing. He would often write as if in the words of Christ himself. For example:

 

As I of my own will offered myself unto God the Father on the Cross for thy sins with outstretched hands and naked body, so that nothing remained in Me that did not become altogether a sacrifice for the Divine propitiation; so also oughtest thou every day to offer thyself willingly unto Me for a pure and holy oblation with all thy strength and affections, even to the utmost powers of thine heart.

 

I believe this is a serious offense. We are never free to claim something as the words of Christ that Christ did not say. At the very least, it is presumptuous, as if Christ needs a little help with his message. At worst, it is sacrilege.

 

I am reluctant to censure so strongly since greater minds than mine have quoted and lauded this work. But I am lukewarm at best about this devotional.

 

.

 

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (novel #226)

The Screwtape Letters with Screwtape Proposes a Toast

 

The Screwtape Letters is an epistolary novel: a series of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon, as he mentors and advises his nephew, junior tempter Wormwood.

 

It is commonly referred to as a Christian allegory or apologetic, but I don’t agree with either designation. I don’t believe Lewis was describing something unreal to explain something real. I believe he was describing something quite real, with fictional characters, that occurs very nearly as he describes it. Oh, I doubt there are physical letters exchanged between demons, but I believe the methods of deceit, confusion, despair, and temptation they use are very similar to what takes place in the unseen spiritual realm. Neither does Lewis seem to be making a defense of Christianity.

 

Further, I don’t think of this as a novel even, at least not in intent. I think it is more of an instructional warning of the intents and wiles of the demonic hordes.

 

I don’t feel adequate to synopsize beyond one central point: Screwtape does not take much satisfaction when Wormwood gets his ‘patient’ to merely sin. The senior demon is more concerned with getting humans to disbelieve.

 

Excepts, all the words of Screwtape to Wormwood:

 

Do remember you are there to fuddle him [the patient]. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!

 

Keep his mind off the plain antithesis between True and False.

 

Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous – that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.

 

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.

 

Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours.

 

Looking round your patient’s new friends I find that the best point of attack would be the borderline between theology and politics.

 

We thus distract men’s minds from who He [Jesus] is, and what He did. We first make Him solely a teacher, and then conceal the very substantial agreement between His teachings and those of all other great moral teachers.

 

…you soon have merely a leader acclaimed by a partisan, and finally a distinguished character approved by a judicious historian.

 

…the strongest and most beautiful of the vices – Spiritual Pride.

 

What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity and’. You know – Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform.

 

So inveterate is their appetite for Heaven that our best method, at this stage, of attaching them to earth is to make them believe that earth can be turned into Heaven at some future date by politics or eugenics or ‘science’ or psychology, or what not.

 

END Excerpts

 

I’ve wanted to read this for years. It was fascinating. Lewis said of it…

 

Though I had never written anything more easily, I never wrote with less enjoyment.

 

I can understand that. He dedicates it to his friend J. R. R. Tolkien. The version I read includes the addendum Screwtape Proposes a Toast, added years after the initial publication.

 

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

 

This novel satisfies the “Double Letters” category (title must contain double letters) in the What’s in a Name 2024 challenge.

 

.

The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (novel #210)

Full title: The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to that which is to Come Delivered under the
Similitude of a Dream

 

…strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. ~ Matthew 7:14

 

The Pilgrim’s Progress is a Christian Allegory, perhaps the Christian Allegory written by 17th Century English Puritan preacher and writer John Bunyan. It was written, or at least started during Bunyan’s imprisonment for preaching and assembling without sanction of The Church of England.

 

The omniscient narrator tells of his dream, wherein the pilgrim, Christian, flees his home in the City of Destruction in search of The Celestial City. It is slow going as Pilgrim doesn’t precisely know the way and carries a heavy burden. He meets Evangelist, who directs him to the Wicket Gate, where he meets the gatekeeper, Goodwill. After entering, he is released of his burden, though there are many pitfalls, enemies, false friends, and some true yet to be encountered.

 

Of the many places Christian must pass through, some are fearful dangers, others are beguiling diversions; some are refining fires and some true delights.

 

Just a sampling of the “places” Christian encounters:

Slough of Despond

Hill Difficulty

House Beautiful

Valley of Humiliation

Plain of Ease

Vanity Fair

Delectable Mountains

 

Similarly, he meets other persons and other pilgrims along the way. Against appearance, some villains, some faithful.

 

Such as:

Worldly Wiseman

The Interpreter

Hypocrisy

Charity

Pope and Pagan

Faithful

Hopeful

Atheist

 

I read a children’s version as a child and barely remember it. The full version has been on my TBR for quite some time, and I am glad to have finally read it. It is difficult for me as a Christian to view this as mere literature because it is something more. It is light in the darkness; it is truth; it is profound; it is timeless.

 

My rating:  4 out of 5 stars

 

 

 

But it is indeed literature and had a tremendous effect on English literature. There are implicit allusions and explicit references in many other classics, such as…

 

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Middlemarch by George Eliot

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

And, of course…

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Others, I’m certain

 

I found it a bit ironic that I should read Bunyan, the Puritan, immediately following the anti-Puritan writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. I didn’t plan it that way. I liked both. Religion, as I believe was Hawthorne’s point, has its flaws. Christ, as Bunyan points out, has none.

 

I read this for the Back tothe Classics 2022 Challenge, Pre-1800 category, thereby completing all twelve categories of the challenge.

 

Wanderer’s Commentary about that bit that is MORE than literature: The Wicket Gate is the Cross of Calvary and the atoning work of Christ. The pilgrim’s struggles do not end when they come to Christ, but the previously mounting weight of their burden, their sin and guilt, is removed and discarded forever by grace through faith in the redeeming work of the sinless lamb of God – The LORD Jesus Christ.

 

.

Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

Hind’s Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

The Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like hind’s feet, and makes me walk on my high places. ~ Habaukkuk 3:19

Hind’s Feet on High Places is the tale of Much-Afraid and her journey to the High Places. Much-Afraid is crippled, deformed, and unattractive; she lives in the Valley of Humiliation with similarly miserable relatives such as her aunt Dismal Foreboding, cousins Gloomy and Spiteful. Most of all, she is plagued by her cousin Craven-Fear who intends to make Much-Afraid his wife, even against her will.

But Much-Afraid senses that her life should be something more meaningful. She has one friend, the Good Shepherd, whom she meets daily at the trysting place. She speaks to him of her desire to leap on the mountain heights like the wild deer. The Shepherd promises to help her reach the High Places, and make her beautiful and whole, if she will but trust him. 

She is beset by fears and doubts, reluctant to set out on such a hazardous and impossible journey, but she does eventually trust the Shepherd and he plants the seed of love in her heart, an initially painful process, which immediately produces resolve and hope. 

The Good Shepherd provides companions for Much-Afraid – companions she is none too glad for – Suffering and Sorrow.

The journey is begun, but indeed not without suffering and sorrow. At each difficulty however, Much-Afraid learns to lean more completely upon the Good Shepherd and he brings victory and a new lesson.

Hind’s Feet is a Christian allegory, describing the journey from unbelief to childlike faith, to mature faith, to faith that serves others. 

The High Places, are not to be mistaken for Heaven, but rather the place of submission and obedience that produces peace and joy, and a servant’s heart. Much-Afraid is given a new name, Grace and Glory, and in her rapture, she thinks of her suffering relatives and countrymen in the Valley of Humiliation. She determines to return to the valley, along with her companions who have been transformed to Peace and Joy, in order to share the hope and good news of the Good Shepherd’s transforming love (the Christian’s Great Commission).

The title: Hind’s Feet on High Places is taken from Habakkuk, but many portions of the narrative are derived from The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), which is a tender and intimate love story, which in turn is a good description of Hind’s Feet on High Places.

I look forward to reading more of this tale, in the sequel: Mountains of Spices.

.