faith

Review: Theo of Golden

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Cover image of "Theo of Golden" by Allen Levi

Theo of Golden

Theo of Golden, Allen Levi. Atria Books (ISBN: 9781668236512) 2025.

Summary: An old man moves to Golden, sees portraits in a coffee shop and in powerful personal encounters gives them to their owners.

I think I’m a latecomer to the Theo of Golden party. For months everyone who has read this book, including friends with discriminating book judgment, have raved about this book. Truthfully, I feared buying the book and being disappointed. Instead, I was won over from his first portrait bestowal to Minnette. For those who haven’t yet read, the story in brief is this:

An old man, Theo moves from New York City to the southern town of Golden to look after his properties. On visiting the local coffee shop, he notices the pencil-drawn portraits of local residents. He conceives the plan to give them to their proper owners. He purchases them, works with Mrs. Gidley, the administrator for James Ponder, whose vacant apartment he has rented, to contact each with a personal note. In it he invites them to meet him at a particular bench by a fountain known as the Fedder..

Along the way, he becomes deeper friends with some of the residents. James Ponder becomes not only advisor but friend and confidant. Others include Tony, a Vietnam vet bookstore owner, a little girl, Lamisha, with extensive injuries from a car crash, an eccentric, homeless cyclist, Ellen and a gifted young cellist, Simone. Then there is his deepening friendship with the artist of the portraits, Asher Glissen.

I won’t go further than that in the plot except to note we know little of Theo’s background except that he grew up in Portugal, lost a daughter, and obviously is a man of great means. What we do learn, and what makes this book so compelling is the humble and beautiful character of Theo.

What most seems to stand out is how fully present he is to each person he meets. Instead of talking about himself, he listens to and draws out stories, making people feel safe with him. Theo even wins the trust of Ellen, the eccentric homeless woman, with whom he eventually goes on a bike adventure, something no one has ever done. He notices and names. He studies each portrait and then speaks of what he sees in that person from what they’ve said and what he sees. Then he gently invites them to live into what he has named.

He loved beauty and joy. Whether it was evening reveries by the Oxbow River, delight in a street musician, or enjoyment of a rare bottle of port with his bookstore friend on that man’s birthday, he had a great capacity to take joy in beauty. We learn that giving away portraits in Golden has been the happiest time of his life.

Yet he was a man who knew deep sadness in a romance broken off, and the death of his daughter. One of the most profound passages, in which he names a gift of the artist, Asher Glissen is about sadness. He has just observed that he sees sadness in every portrait of Glissen’s.

“It is a very high compliment, young man. A very high compliment indeed. Perhaps I am mistaken but, at some point, if we are wise, we must all confront our sadness, our brokenness, our disappointment. I am quite certain that your portraits help some people in a very tender and courteous way, to ask themselves, maybe for the first time, ‘Who is that person? What do I know to be true, really true, about that face?…Asher, we are masters at masking our sadness, but deep down inside, if we are honest, we know that there is an unsatisfied longing deep inside all of us. Your portraits invite people to be alone and quiet and truthful with themselves, to admit the longing and to discover the goodness in their sadness. Maybe?”

Asher is also one who notices and names through his portraits.

Finally, Theo is a man of deep faith. While Tony, the bookstore owner scoffs at the idea, Theo quietly hopes in heaven. This vision of heaven is evident in the Christmas gifts he gives. He invites Simone, the cellist, to play for the angels. He calls the little girl, Lamisha, a daughter of the King. And he writes to Asher,

“It is an imponderable thought that the Giver of Faces, the face of heaven itself, the face for which every heart yearns, became a wee babe, misty-eyed and helpless, looking Himself for the tender face of his mother on the night of the angels.”

I understand why this book has touched the hearts of many. We are confronted with heartlessness in our media every day. Levi’s book speaks to a yearning in us that believes “another life is possible” as my friends in the Bruderhof describe it. Theo embodies that life. His presence paints a picture of the Christ-transformed life. He incarnates the deep humility, gentleness, generosity, playfulness, and compassion of the Lord of heaven. And quietly, Theo of Golden invites us into that same kind of life.

Why I’m Celebrating Dependence Day Today

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a religious man praying solemnly
Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com

I’m not celebrating Independence Day. It’s not for lack of love for the United States. It is because I love this country. My father, who fought in World War II, taught me to love this country. He was proud of his service. But were he alive today, I think he might be asking, “is this what I fought for?” As much as I miss him, I’m glad he is not living through these days.

Two old men, unfit in my judgement to serve, running for the highest office of our land (is this the best we can do?). A high court that lacks an ethical compass and will not act to remedy its flaws. A congress engaged in endless partisan squabbling that rarely comes together to tackle the substantive issues facing our country.

Sadly, these institutions are just a reflection of us. We are a violent country, leading the high income countries of the world in firearm deaths. Students from other countries fear coming here because of gun violence. Increasingly people question the idea of the rule of law. Do we realize that the only alternatives are the rule of power or chaos? We allow our political leaders to persuade us it is right to demean whole groups of people, blaming the problems of the country on “them.”

I could go on and indulge my “cranky old man.” But it’s a holiday.

Not Independence Day for me. The idea of independence has become one of untrammeled personal freedom reflecting neither an appropriate fear of God, concern for the common good, nor care for the good land we’ve been given.

For me, it is Dependence Day. But not on our politicians. Not on our technology. Not on some dream of American greatness. It can be argued that all of these have demonstrably failed us. So why do we keep putting so much trust in them? Isn’t that a definition of insanity?

If you know me, you know that I am a follower of Jesus. Jesus gets my implicit trust and allegiance. It means that in life and death, I depend utterly on Jesus to sustain me and I take my marching orders for life from him. But what troubles me is that much of the Christian “tribe” of which I’m part seems to pay only lip service to this and seems more enamored with politics than Jesus. I agree with this assessment in an NPR interview by Christianity Today editor Russell Moore that we are in trouble:

“Well, it was the result of having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching – turn the other cheek – to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.“

This is the day I want to renew my dependence on Jesus. Not to make America anything, as much as I long for an awakening to God in our country. I want to renew my dependence on what he taught, even if it seems weak. My father had a watchword that seems important to remember today:

Read and pray;

Trust and obey;

Live God’s way.

My father lived in the faith that come what may, God sustained those who depended on him. I want to join my father in making this day, and every day, Dependence Day.

Review: What is Faith?

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Cover image of "What is Faith/" by J. Gresham Machen

What is Faith?, J. Gresham Machen. Banner of Truth (ISBN: 9781800403598), 2023 (First published in 1925).

Summary: An exposition of the Bible’s teaching on what constitutes vibrant and saving Christian faith.

“Believe in Jesus!” “Saved by faith!” “I don’t have enough faith.” “We just have to have faith.”

The language of faith, even in our secular age, is bandied about a great deal. But are we all talking about the same thing? Sometimes, it seems like faith simply means some sense of the transcendent or a “religious sentiment of the heart.” At the other end of the spectrum, “faith” may be connected with affirmation of a particular set of doctrines–the faith. Faith is spoken in Hebrews 11:1 as the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” and yet in many minds faith is a vague feeling rather than substance and a hope in what one is pretty sure is not true.

It seems that this treatise by J. Gresham Machen, nearly 100 years old has never been so needed. He decries the fuzzy thinking, the lack of clear thinking, and the attack upon intellect in general and among Christians specifically in his own day. Nowhere is this so evident as in understanding the true nature of biblical faith, and this is what he sets out to address in this biblically grounded and carefully reasoned work.

He begins by observing that faith must have some object. For the Christian, this is the triune God. To believe in God (or any personal being), one most know the character of the one believed. This is both “doctrine,” and as it is understood becomes personal trust. All this is predicated on the idea that God has revealed God’s self. It also concerns our standing with God as sinners and how God, consistently revealed as loving Father, has addressed that standing through his Son, in whom there is redemption.

What then does faith involve? Faith combines knowledge of the truth with belief that the God may be trusted, and acceptance as undeserved gift what God has accomplished through his Son. As he sets forth these classic ideas, he engages the modernist challenge of his day with its “Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man,” emphasizing humanitarian good works and imitating Christ as a good teacher. He speaks bitingly of the “Good American” character education of his day and argued that spiritual and moral education was not the work of schools but churches and comparable religious institutions. For those who think this is a way to Christianize society, he argues that this moralism inoculates people against a genuine awareness of sin and need of the saving work of Christ.

He continues to address modernist challenges in his chapter on faith and salvation, really a classic exposition of justification by faith, answering the question of how we may hope for right standing with God. He addresses the ever-present temptation to combine faith with our works as salvific. Rather, those saved by faith work, with work arising from, rather than contributing to their faith. In the final chapter he addresses “faith and hope” and the experience of “weak” faith. He emphasizes that while the object for all Christians is to grow in their confident faith in God, it is not the size of our faith, as if it were some spiritual force, but the gracious and powerful character off God that matters.

This is a rich work filled with practical examples as well as careful reasoning. While some of the controversies today are different (and some not so much), Machen’s insights are important to anyone committed to the task of making disciples: from communicating the gospel, through conversion, and in encouraging the life of faith. As with so many classic works, Banner of Truth has served the church well in the re-publication of this work, soon to be joined by two others, God Transcendent and The Christian View of Man.

Review: Even If He Doesn’t

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Even If He Doesn’t, Kristen LaValley. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, (Forthcoming February) 2024.

Summary: A memoir of facing suffering and all the questions of why and where is God and does God hear.

If we pray and devote ourselves to God and God’s mission and do what is right, God will protect and bless our lives. Right? And if we suffer, we have gone astray from that formula. Right? Kristen LeValley grew up with those kind of ideas until devastating traumas forced her to go deeper and question these verities, the same ones Job endured from his friends. She and her husband were forced to leave a church where they ministered. She miscarried, witnessed a murder, and faced a high risk pregnancy with twins and a resulting two month stay in a NICU.

This book, while discussing the other traumas, focuses on her high risk pregnancy. After a miscarriage she learned that her and Zach would have twins. Then came the ultrasound that changed everything. One of the babies was not getting enough blood through the umbilical cord. The baby could die and her death would send a rush of blood through the cord of the other baby, possibly killing her as well and endangering Kristen’s life. The recommendation was to cut the cord of the baby not getting enough blood to save the other.

She wrestled with trying to come up with an explanation. Was it her fault or God’s? Was there some purpose in all this? She couldn’t find answers to any of these questions and the book recounts her dawning understanding that God nevertheless was present. Suffering, in revealing her inadequate theology, was an invitation to know God better. Facing a terrible decision, she discovers wisdom in the form of simply continuing the pregnancy, despite questions at every appointment about terminating the life of one child. Still, she had to face the question of “what if He doesn’t?” which brought her to the question of will I trust him if one or both of my babies die?

In a series of short chapters, combining personal narrative, sometimes heart-breaking, she takes us through her process, how God met her amid the messiness of her trauma. Along the way she notes how unhelpful the constant questions about terminating the pregnancy were on one hand and, equally, the valorizing by pro-life Christians of her decision to carry the twins to term. Neither comprehended the valley she was going through.

At the conclusion of each chapter, she summarizes the “shift” in her beliefs through her painful journey. I liked this at the end of a chapter titled “The Sacredness of Shared Pain”:

THE DISTORTION:

The reason someone is suffering and
their response to that suffering determines
the level of compassion they deserve.

THE SHIFT

Compassion, given freely and without restriction,
reflects the heart of the Father to those who are
hurting, regardless of how that pain happened.

This is a valuable book to read both for the suffering and those who walk alongside the suffering. No cliches. Just an unvarnished account of pain and the ways the author came to understand God anew.

I love this statement toward the end about God being glorified in our suffering:

“We don’t have to tie things up with a pretty bow to make sure we’re presenting God in the best light. We don’t have to justify our heartbreak to prove that God is still good. We don’t have to find a target so it will make sense. We don’t have to defend God’s goodness by dismissing the pain of our experiences” (p. 187).

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: A Curious Faith

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A Curious Faith, Lore Ferguson Wilbert (Foreword by Seth Haines). Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2022.

Summary: A book about the questions God asks, we ask, and those we wish we were asked, all with the message of living the questions and not hastily grasping for answers.

There is a strong and deeply embedded streak within me to want to have the answer to any question. Perhaps it came from being the class nerd, somewhat overweight, who compensated for his lack of athleticism with being a good student. Later, as a young follower of Christ, it seemed to be important to answer the questions my friends who didn’t believe would ask. Yet I began to notice that my “answers” didn’t reach to the heart of my friends’ questions. Then midlife hit, and deeply painful life junctures and I became aware that the answers weren’t reaching to the heart of my questions. And because the questions were existential ones like, “does my life really matter?” and “does God really care?”, they mattered, and I began to learn that living the questions rather than hastening to answers that really didn’t work was vital. Those questions laid bare what was in me and awakened in me my longing for God, not as an answer, but One to be known.

That journey is one Lore Ferguson Wilbert traces in her own life. The book opens with epigraphs from Madeleine L’Engle and Rainer Maria Wilke about living the questions. Wilbert traces her own journey from certitudes to questions, finding a church that loved her despite all her questions, living them with her. What is most striking though is that in three parts she explores the questions we find in scripture: The questions God asks of people, the questions we ask of God, and the questions we wish someone would ask of us, the questions asked by Jesus during his ministry.

The chapters (32 in all) are short, allowing readers to pause and sit with the questions and reflections and consider where these might connect with the questions they are living in their own lives. One chapter I appreciated was God’s question to Moses: “What is in your hand?” Wilbert observes: “When God asks what is in Moses’s hand, the staff in his hand is there because so many things have just gone wrong in Moses life.” She sees in that staff all our failures in life and then moves to consider what that staff in his hand came to mean as Moses shepherded God’s people. She considers the question Jesus asks the woman caught in adultery, “Who condemns you?”, and reflects on how often we have a condemning voice in our head and think ourselves utter failures at being good Christians when Jesus’ first concern for the woman is that she be safe and know that no one condemns her–only then is she or any of us free to refrain from sinning.

The invitation throughout is to be curious. To sit with questions, to keep questioning, to bring our questions to God, opening ourselves to God. Her curiosity sometimes leads her to ask a raft of questions in some of the chapters and this perhaps can be overwhelming. Sometimes, a single good question is enough. She urges us to not be hasty to grasp at answers that are too small for our questions. In various ways she holds out the hope that there is really one Answer, and to wait for Him and to allow his questions and ours to take us on that journey to Him, however that comes to pass.

I thought her most profound chapter the one on “The Unasked Questions” where she describes the Tenebrae service that ends with the cry, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” followed by all lights extinguished. Sometimes we don’t even know the questions to ask, we live a kind of death, as we await the coming of light, and life. Only what has died may be raised.

This is an uncomfortable book. But there are many living with uncomfortable questions. To them, this book is a kind of balm, that encourages them to keep living them. They are questions that matter, questions that break us open to God, questions that lead us to far more than just “answers.” Often such people are thought to have lost their way. This book proposes that a curious faith that lives the questions is the only way to find one’s way.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Strength for the Fight

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Strength for the Fight (Library of Religious Biography), Gary Scott Smith. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2022.

Summary: A biography on this pioneer Hall of Famer who desegregated Major League Baseball, devoted his post-playing years to civil rights activism, all sustained by his active faith.

As a lifelong baseball fan, this is not the first Jackie Robinson biography I’ve read. The one I read when I was a young fan focused on his exploits on the field, his courage and restraint in breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball, and how his play contributed to several pennants and a World Series victory. As this book makes clear, Robinson not only needed to be both courageous and self-controlled to face racist treatment, he needed to be good–and he was. He was fast and daring on the base paths, a great fielder, and could deliver hits and bunts in clutch situations. He was a great all-round ballplayer deserving of Hall of Fame status simply on those merits.

This book added to the portrait of Robinson in several ways. Most importantly, it reveals him as a man of deep faith, who like Augustine had a godly mother and his own Ambrose in the form of a Methodist pastor, Karl Downs, who rescued him from gang life in Pasadena. Later, as he faces intense pressure and vitriol, he testifies, “Many nights I get down on my knees and pray for the strength not to fight back.” This and the support of his wife Rachel made all the difference for a proud man whose natural instinct was to fight back. Yet Smith also shows how Rachel went beyond standing by Robinson to pursue her own career as a nurse-therapist and professor.

Gary Scott Smith also fleshes out the vital role Branch Rickey played in Robinson’s life. Smith goes into the Methodist faith the two men shared, a critical factor in Rickey deciding to sign Robinson. Rickey was both a deeply religious man in Smith’s account and a sharp (and parsimonious) baseball entrepreneur. It was Rickey’s counsel he followed in not fighting back against spiking, knockdown pitches, and crude racial insults. When Rickey died in 1965 he said of Rickey: “He talked with me and treated me like a son.” The treatment of Rickey is so interesting that I would love to see Smith follow up this book with a full length biography on Rickey, perhaps as part of this Library of Religious Biography series.

What also distinguishes this book is the account it gives of Robinson’s post-baseball career as a tireless activist for civil rights through newspaper columns that did not hesitate to criticize presidents of either party, through public addresses including messages in hundreds of churches, marching on the front lines in places like Selma. At the same time, Robinson was not a “movement activist.” While honored by the NAACP with its Spingarn award, he did not hesitate to differ with others like Paul Robeson over communism or Dr. King over Vietnam. Some accused him of being an “Uncle Tom” for his relationship with Nelson Rockefeller, motivated by both political and business considerations, and his support in 1960 for Richard Nixon.

Vietnam would contribute to tragedy in Robinson’s life. His son Jackie, Jr. returned with addiction problems but the book makes clear the strains on the father-son relationship between the two. Sadly, just as Jackie, Jr. started to get his life on track as well as his relationship with his father, he died in an auto accident, just a year before Jackson himself passed.

That leads to my one question about this book, that the author doesn’t discuss how such a fine athlete as Robinson died at age 53, just sixteen years after retirement, suffering from diabetes, heart disease, and nearly blind. Others have discussed the disparate impacts of racism on health and the effects of his repressed anger and racial traumas on his health. Pictures of Robinson show him with hair turning white in his last playing years. Robinson bore on his body in many ways, externally and internally, the trauma of racism, and perhaps this might have been further developed in this work.

Smith portrays Robinson’s faith as “muscular,” and apart from those bedside prayers concerned more about moral and social uplift of his people, expressed in his tireless work. Even in his last years, with failing health, he was grateful for God’s blessings. Yet, he was infrequent in church attendance, and Smith notes the evidence of extra-marital affairs. After his first two years, he was more aggressive in defending himself on the field, having fulfilled his agreement with Rickey. Yet there is a thread running through the course of his life, shown by Smith of a faith that sustained and strengthened Robinson. What resulted was some of the most significant civil rights leadership in the twentieth century delivered in the form of a stellar athlete (no one since has stolen home more than the 19 times he did this) and a courageous champion. His faith, courage, and perseverance are worth emulation.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.