Book Reviews: Where the Light Fell; Freedom to Flourish
Where the Light Fell: A Memoir by Philip Yancey (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021)
Philip Yancey’s father died of polio when Philip was just a baby. Afterwards, his mother lay on her husband’s grave and dedicated her two young sons to God. That vow would become a burden that severely damaged Philip’s faith and almost destroyed his brother.
Best known for popular books like The Jesus I Never Knew and What’s So Amazing about Grace?, Yancey tells a story here that makes you wonder how he was able to hold on to his faith at all. His mother, adored and admired by the people to whom she taught Bible studies, was at home a controlling, angry perfectionist whose demands could never be met. For years, young Philip’s life revolved around one of those churches where you proved your holiness by reading only the King James Version of the Bible, and also by barring black children from attending the church school and black adults from church membership.
This searing memoir, in short, demonstrates why so many Christians are now wrestling with or outright walking away from the faith they grew up in—a narrow, rigid, anemic faith that set people apart from the world in all the wrong ways. It was, ironically, the influence of the world beyond his legalistic church and family that would bring Philip back to God and help him discover what faith was really supposed to be about. Education, books, nature, and romance did for him what his mother’s strict and selfish religion could not.
“Nature teaches me nothing about Incarnation or the Victorious Christian Life,” he recalls. “It does, though, awaken my desire to meet whoever is responsible for the monarch butterfly.”
Where the Light Fell should be read and taken to heart by Christians everywhere. It could not possibly be more timely or more important.
Freedom to Flourish: The Rest God Offers in the Purpose He Gives You by Elizabeth Garn (P&R Publishing, 2021)
Elizabeth Garn knows something about the Christian rat race. Like many of us, she got caught up in pursuing perfect Christian womanhood, trying to follow all the rules and live up to all the expectations, until she was nearly burned out.
What helped Elizabeth (a friend from one of my online writing groups) was going back to the first three chapters of Genesis and gaining a new understanding of creation and of the cultural mandate. In Freedom to Flourish she delves into the biblical idea of being an image bearer of God, and how a right understanding of that idea can transform our thinking and our lives, teaching us that we don’t have to chase perfection or follow long lists of rules to fulfill our purpose. She takes us through passage after passage, looking at her own misunderstandings and the faulty, restrictive teachings she’d heard, and reinterpreting those passages to give us a clearer vision of a loving, nourishing God. I especially appreciated her explanation of the cultural mandate (“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”) as being about “more than just babies and farming.” Rather, it’s a mission that all are called and equipped to carry out, parents and non-parents alike, bringing all our creativity and character to the task.
I can’t help but think that if Philip Yancey’s mother had read a book like this, she and her family might have been spared so much suffering.
(Thanks to P&R Publishing for the review copy.)
(Cover images copyright Hodder & Stoughton and P&R Publishing, respectively.)
Book Links:
Where the Light Fell on Amazon
Where the Light Fell on Bookshop
Freedom to Flourish on Amazon
Freedom to Flourish on Bookshop