Soul Survivor

We have heard so many people sharing their own pain and disillusionment in the church. Some, if not all, of the stories are dreadful so that we look at the house of God with disillusioned eyes. Or, worse, we distrust God's presence. His silence then alters our faith.

Crisis of faith is an old story, older than you and I. In fact, it keeps on haunting us. Still, we keep on doing the things that we are not supposed to do even as we certainly know what we are doing. Why then it is hard for us to hold on to our faith when all we need to do is to simply believe? Why do we allow our sense of awareness betrays us? That I could not answer, but it is always good to know that we are not alone when we ask these questions.

Soul Survivor is actually a book of hope, at least in the eyes of this reviewer. This is enough reason why I have given so much of my time and space reading this book of Philip Yancey that brings about a different meaning of what an inspirational book is all about. I have been reading literary books of different genres, but never this kind of book that represents our thirst for life's esoteric meaning.

Soul Survivor is partly autobiographical in tone. The book allows us to have a glimpse of Yancey's inspiring life and faith journeys, juxtaposing thirteen unlikely mentors' lives and faith journeys and how all of them (or the journeys Yancey has made) have become shapers of his faith, his personal "cloud of witnesses." It's a very fascinating book that does not sound preachy at all.

In chapter 1, "Recovering From Church Abuse," Yancey directly tells us that he has no need to defend the church every time he hears yet another horror story about it. Rather, he shares his own story, even worse, to them. After all, Yancey spent most of his life in recovery from the church. He grew up in southern U.S.A., where a large part of his youth was spent in a fundamentalist and racist church.

Yancey writes: "Later, I came to realize that the church had mixed in lies with truth. For example, the pastor preached blatant racism from the pulpit. Dark races are cursed by God, he said, citing an obscure passage in Genesis. They function well as servants - 'Just look how colored waiters in restaurants can weave among the tables, swiveling their hips, carrying trays'- but never as leaders."

In the remaining chapters, Yancey talks about the thirteen unlikely mentors who have helped his faith survive the church. The thirteen people are an interesting and selective mix of names we know; while others, perhaps, are not as familiar. He has a quiet versatile group where "each stands at the top of his or her field, and credits personal faith as one of the reasons why." Despite a series of rejections of the church and God that felt like liberation for a time, Yancey did not end up as an atheist, yet still landed in the loving arms of God.

The thirteen unlikely mentors who have greatly provided him with hope and inspiration include a pioneer of leprosy treatment, Dr. Paul Brand, writers G.K. Chesterton, Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Shusaku Endo, poet John Donne, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi. He begins with Martin Luther King, Jr. and ends with Henri Nouwen, both of whom many Christians will know through their massive output of books and speeches.

Yancey tells us about each of these individuals' lives, all of whom, except for King, are authors themselves. He admirably shares his wonderful conversation with many of his mentors, providing his readers numerous interesting details about his meetings with them and how each person affected and helped him to fully understand and give better judgment with the background of his past struggles in the church. It is also good that Yancey gives suggestions for further readings at the end of each chapter.

God knows we need to change in many ways. But we shun this notion, constantly spending a lifetime ignoring the fact that all of us will eventually die. Still, for me, a crisis of faith is something we will be grappling with over and over again.

There are indeed books that are to be slowly chewed to be properly digested. Philip Yancey's Soul Survivor is one of them.

(Soul Survivor is published and distributed by OMF Literature Inc. For more information, you may call 4125543).