Book Reviews CR June 2011 Print
Written by Production   
Friday, 10 June 2011 04:41 PM America/New_York

TOP PICK: Fiction

TheJudasGospelThe Judas Gospel

Bill Myers

Howard Books

softcover, 320 pages, $16.99

978-1-439-15354-3

Judas had another plan for Jesus, but his dream fell through when Jesus chose to proclaim the truth through His death and resurrection. In Myers’ supernatural thriller The Judas Gospel, the betraying disciple gets another chance to “proclaim His truth my way.” Jesus allows Judas—reimagined as a contemporary Jude Miller—to “sell” God to the public via fragile, spiritually gifted Rachel Delacroix. 

Rachel’s healing gift is the perfect vehicle to market God, except that she also has dreams about a serial killer that seem to implicate her. Add to the mix a rookie cop attracted to Rachel, a pair of veteran detectives, a beautiful psychiatrist and a bunch of demons attached to a troubled kid—Myers blends it all in a taut tale of spiritual strength, horrific evil and marketing genius. 

Readers will find much to ponder in this strangely riveting story as Rachel’s pastor-father does his best to find the true message of God amid a cacophony of success and fame; his job is difficult, yet God’s truth always stands strong despite humanity’s deepest evil.

—Ann E. Byle

MoreThanORdinaryChristian Life

More Than Ordinary

Doug Sherman with Terra McDaniel

NavPress

softcover, 240 pages, $14.99

978-1-615-21616-1

Author and businessman Sherman shares his unique take on Christian living in More Than Ordinary: Enjoying Life With God. In a testimony that baffles even some of his pastor friends, as a disgruntled teenager he meets Christ in the form of a man and surrenders his life. Thereafter, he claims Christ appears to him in a physical presence, figuring directly into all of his actions.

Sherman uses a variety of analogies to elucidate his vision of the ideal Christian walk, but the one to which he returns throughout the book is that of God or Christ as a parent. If God is a parent, Sherman argues, He is interested in every aspect of His children’s lives, no matter how trivial, and wants to train His children to go into the “family business” of bringing souls to Christ.

Sherman sets high standards for his readers, insisting on finding witnessing opportunities in the most mundane of activities, such as shopping or pumping gas. Still, believers will find Sherman’s approach to Christianity refreshing and inspiring.

—John Leatherman

Response-AbleResponse-Able

Matthew Hagee

Charisma House

softcover, 240 pages, $15.99

978-1-616-38136-3

Written by a sixth-generation pastor who is a son of well-respected author and pastor John Hagee, Response-Able: Lessons From My Father About Life…and Making a Difference is a play on words, aiming to heighten the reader’s curiosity. Explaining the title in the foreword, John Hagee says that the response-able Christian is “always able to make an intelligent and godly response.”

Presented in an informal, easy-to-read manner, Response-Able brings a fresh perspective to the areas of personal, social, financial, educational and political responsibility. This work lays the foundation for making a difference in the believer’s life and explains what it means to live by principle and not by passion. Real-life anecdotes and scriptural references illustrate what it means to be response-able.

With a clear, straightforward approach, Hagee shows that as life’s circumstances continually change, the ability to respond is always there. Thought-provoking and potentially life-changing, Response-Able is not just practical in application, but also empowering and motivating.

—Jean Breunle

TrueNorthTrue North

Gary Heim & Lisa Heim

Kregel Publications

softcover, 320 pages, $16.99

978-0-825-42751-0

Difficult circumstances—from mundane frustrations to soul-shattering trauma—assail us and few learn to suffer well. The Heims provide a compass in True North: Choosing God in the Frustrations of Life, which features a foreword by Christian psychologist Larry Crabb.

The couple—who have served as counselors, professors and church leaders—explain that believers have a choice in how they respond to life’s challenges. They can “head south” when they focus on themselves, which fosters grumbling and grasping, or face north—toward God—which results in gratitude and giving. What makes this work especially helpful is that the authors disclose how they have coped with their own struggles.

Drawing from the well of spiritual and psychological insight, the authors quote from literary scholar C.S. Lewis, spiritual director Henri Nouwen and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck. 

With discussion questions at the end of each chapter, True North is suited for individuals as well as group study. It will help readers connect or reconnect to God in the midst of trials.

—Brian Smith McCallum

TheWaitingPlaceThe Waiting Place

Eileen Button

Thomas Nelson

softcover, 240 pages, $15.99

978-0-849-94625-7

Newspaper columnist and commentator Button gives a vibrant snapshot of life in The Waiting Place: Learning to Appreciate Life’s Little Delays. 

She chronicles life’s delays, sometimes with humor, sometimes with pain. At times, she observes, life’s delays are so filled with meaning that their purpose is obvious; at other times, they are simply to be endured.

Button writes with such clarity that her experiences will be well-recognized by the reader. From her early teen years waiting for her mother to finish styling her hair through marriage, the birth of two healthy children, financial hardship and the trauma of a child born with multiple birth defects, she learns to wait time and again. When her husband accepts God’s call to become a senior pastor in Michigan, she must leave the people in Pennsylvania who have loved and supported them through their son’s crisis.

Even while thinking “This is so not the life I dreamed of living,” Button has a simple encounter that causes her to hear God’s voice clearly, and offers encouragement to her readers to wait and listen in their own “little delays.”

—Eilene Ishler

Fiction

BrokenWingsBroken Wings

Carla Stewart

FaithWords

softcover, 320 pages, $13.99

978-0-446-55656-9

Stewart’s Broken Wings is an intriguing tale of an unexpected friendship between two women of different ages and stages of life. From the fateful night when Mitzi Steiner meets the distressed Brooke Wooden, she cannot help but want to learn more about the young woman who reminds her so much of her mother—both having allowed the men in their lives to abuse them.

Mitzi is one half of a popular jazz duo who reigned for 30 years on the music scene. The other half is her husband, Gabe Steiner, who is battling Alzheimer’s. 

Brooke, meanwhile, is engaged to the “perfect” man, the handsome Lance Evans who is aiming to become Tulsa’s next district attorney. But Lance has a temper, leaving Brooke with hard decisions to make. 

As one woman deals with the love of her life’s battle with illness and the other struggles with an unhealthy relationship,  they lean on each other and find healing. 

—Adela L. Dia

Relationships

ALoveThatMultipliesA Love That Multiplies

Michelle & Jim Bob Duggar

Howard Books

hardcover, 288 pages, $19.99

978-1-439-18381-6

Viewers of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting want to know how Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have raised obedient children who embrace their parents’ faith, and why they are willing to have more, even after their 19th, Josie, was born premature. 

As their oldest children enter adulthood, how have they been prepared for courtship and marriage? How will they afford college? And what do they believe about women having careers? These questions and more are addressed in A Love that Multiplies: An Up-Close View of How They Make It Work. 

Whether readers want to know how the family prevailed through Josie’s months in the hospital or if they are simply curious about Duggar life, their questions are answered here. The couple shares candidly their faith and how they have overcome their struggles in this well-written work.

—Tammy Tiansay