Soul Survivor - Philip Yancey

The full title of this text is Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church. And I was given this book by a pastor, of all people.

I've thanked him.

I like Yancey for many reasons. First of all, he's not afraid to ask the hard questions. He's written a book called Disappointment with God (to be reviewed once I manage to get all the way through it) that asks some seriously hard questions. The questions are so hard I have a difficult time thinking about them. Second, I like Yancey because he likes to poke at those aspects of Christianity nobody wants to talk about anymore, particularly the way that, for centuries, God's Holy Word was used to justify slavery and racism. He's made a lot of people angry, talking about that, but he doesn't stop. And he can't stop, because it's still happening today. There are still regions of the US and Canada where being a blatant racist and advertising hate is perfectly societally acceptable, and even the church won't do anything about it. Third, I like Yancey because he can find the Light in the gray areas. And that, in essence, is what Soul Survivor is all about.

When Yancey says 'unlikely mentors', he means it. The thirteen individuals discussed in this book are not all the ones preached about on Sunday as an example of perfect Christianity. However, Yancey discusses their lives, sorts through their lives, and points out where one can find extraordinary lessons about God in each of their lives. He begins with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Within this narrative, Yancey forthrightly admits his early experiences with racism, how he learned it within the sanctuary of a church. King had an absolute commitment to nonviolence, which in turn, and deliberately, exposed racism for the hateful, disgusting thing that it is. Yancey's heart was turned, as were millions of others. Yancey is also honest in discussing King's own apparent failures, but leaves no doubt in anyone's mind as to the extraordinary impact on both himself and the rest of America.

Though King is often hailed as a Christian hero, and rightfully so, not all of Yancey's mentors follow suit. He discusses Mahatma Ghandi, India's 'Great Soul', who led India to freedom from colonial rule through absolute nonviolent civil disobedience. Ghandi changed the way a nation, and much of the world, thought about the poor, the downtrodden, the 'untouchable'. He preferred to live and sleep in the dirtiest, most dangerous slums even when he was invited to a king's palace. He would not elevate himself above any man, but demanded that those around him treat one another with absolute love and respect. Sound like anyone else you've heard of?

Ghandi openly rejected Christianity.

Yancey still calls him a mentor. The truth of the matter is, Ghandi did not embrace Christianity, but he read about, and tried hard to embody, many of Christ's teachings. In an age where Jesus's own words were being used to justify colonialism, class systems, and many other forms of bigotry, hatred, and domination, that aspect of Christ's love was sorely needed.

Yancey goes on. He discusses Dr. Paul Brand, whose work dramatically furthered the field of leprosy treatment, but whose drive was fueled by a Christ-given love and compassion for those he served. There's Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, whose controversial, tortured works and lives represent a struggle for redemption from which we can all learn. There's English writer GK Chesterton, whose absentminded scribblings still managed to convey profound truths. There's C. Everett Koop, the reluctant surgeon general who struggled to maintain his faith and integrity in a tumultuous period in American social history. There's Annie Dillard, the Pulitzer prizewinner whose writings inspired a nation, but whose fame exacted a sizeable toll. In each of the chapters, he discusses the church's reaction to these mentors, and exposes, sometimes painfully so, the deep and alarming flaws apparent within the church system today.

Yancey is a journalist by trade, so his writing is a pleasure to read. He's clear and wonderfully concise, and weaves through such fantastic little sensual details, you get completely drawn in. He's not an easy read. For the non-Christian, you might be gleeful to find a discussion of a problem within the Christian church, but in the next sentence, you'll see precisely why this issue must be forgiven and why you should embrace God's love anyhow. For the Christian, it's not easy to read about imperfect people having a huge impact on someone's faith, especially if they're someone who has been vilified within the church. It's also painful to read about the flaws in our own system, because Yancey doesn't simply say "you're imperfect, but God loves you anyway so don't worry about it." Yancey calls us to struggle to move beyond that, to take the lessons from the imperfect lives and faiths in order to try and perfect our own. He does not allow for mediocrity or apathy, which is perhaps what he's been speaking against through the whole book.

Highly Recommended.