Book Review: Just Courage, by Gary Haugen

Just Courage: God’s Great Expedition for the Restless Christian

By Gary A. Haugen

(InterVarsity Press: 978-0-8308-3494-5, HB, 150 pages)

Would you rather be safe or brave? Do you want to have a life that is successful or a life that is significant? Gary Haugen challenges Christians with these questions in Just Courage.

Gary Haugen is the founder of International Justice Mission, an organization that defends those who cannot defend themselves against injustice around the world—slaves, women and children imprisoned in brothels, the dispossessed, and the attacked.

Haugen sees a generation of Western Christians who are bored and dissatisfied with their Christian experience. Rejecting yesteryear’s pietism, they want something more. But they don’t know what that “more” is or how to reach it.

However, “more” is found in following Jesus, and that “is about loving people in need.” (page 116) Drawing on Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 58:10-11, and similar passages, Haugen defines justice from a biblical perspective, rejecting the popular Marxist redistributionist theory. Haugen notes that we can understand justice by looking at it its inverse, injustice, which is “the abuse of power—abusing power by taking from others the good things that God intended for them, namely, their life, liberty, dignity, or the fruits of their love or their labor.” (page 46)

Using examples of those who have followed Jesus in the fight for biblical justice in the past, those who are fighting injustice today, and the needs of victims, Haugen asserts that Christians can find significance in their lives as they join with Jesus in loving needy people.

Though he presents the philosophical and theological arguments for promoting justice, this is not a dry theological tome. Rather it is an engaging, lively discussion based on the teachings of Jesus to inspire readers to venture outside their spiritual cul-de-sac into a world of pain and to make a difference.

Some groups will reject Haugen’s argument. Those who reject the teachings of Jesus as irrelevant in this dispensation will dismiss it. Those who embrace pietism will turn their backs on it, and those who want to look good in the world’s eyes will disdain it.

For those seeking “more” Christ, more meaning, in their Christian walk, Just Courage may hold the key for which they are searching. His appendices offer ways to partner with International Justice Mission, a list of other organizations involved in the issues of justice, and serious questions for reflection.

Remember what Lucy said in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when she hears of Aslan for the first time? She asks, "Is he quite safe?" The answer, of course, is, "No, he’s not safe, but he’s good." Even so, as we follow such a lion into the world, it will not be safe. But it will be good. Very good. (page 109)

Reviewed by Debbie W. Wilson

This review was originally published at ChristianBookPreviews.com

Book Review: Like Always

LIKE ALWAYS

by Robert Elmer

(WaterBrook Press; 978-1-4000-7165-4; PB; 308 pages)

"You wish Will didn't have to worry so much, and that it was just like it always was when our kids played together and we had barbecues on the back patio and Easter egg hunts in the Abells' backyard." (p. 224)

For Merit Sullivan how can life ever be Like Always when her husband Will trades his secure job of a lifetime in the Bay area for a dream to operate a rundown resort in the wilderness of Idaho? When her son Michael returns from Iraq an emotionally wounded stranger? When she finds out in one day that she's pregnant and has an aggressive form of leukemia?

Suddenly Merit is alone in holding onto a tiny life that puts her own at greater risk. Never spiritually strong, Will is struggling to support her and leans on the pastor of the local church. Her estranged sister Sydney, a cat-loving vegetarian New Ager, attacks men in general, Will in particular, and the church for Merit's decision to keep the baby and put off treatment. Michael and her two young daughters seesaw between hope and despair.

Merit finds help and friendship in young Stephanie Unruh, the local pastor's daughter. So does Michael.

After someone leaks Merit's story, the national press descends on Kokanee Cove. Life is certainly not like it always was. But does God have something better in mind?

Rita Fedrizzi, a forty-one-year old Italian woman who found she was pregnant and had cancer at the same time, inspired Robert Elmer to write Like Always. Fedrizzi rejected cancer treatment in order to give life to her baby.

Elmer takes us through the emotions and thinking of Merit, Will, Sydney and those around them. He describes the conflict, the pain, the misunderstandings, and the passions aroused by Merit's decision in a moving tale of courage, love, and selflessness. The author portrays the characters so realistically in their challenges, hopes, and fears that I found thoughts of them pursuing me throughout the day. Readers will not want to put this story down until they complete the journey with Merit and Will.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. However, I did have one problem. The story alludes to a time of intimacy between Will and Merit the end of April being responsible for her pregnancy. But the baby is not born until Easter. This makes an eleven-month pregnancy. Other than this timing problem, it's a thoughtful, tender love story of a woman for her unexpected child, a husband for his wife, and two estranged sisters for one another. The timing does not change the issues involved.

Readers of tender heart may expect to shed a few tears.

Reviewed by Debbie W. Wilson, a human rights advocate, speaker, and author of Christy Award-winning thriller Tiger in the Shadows. Her weekly prayer list for the persecuted church can be found on the home page of Bound Together Ministries.