Not too long ago I had the opportunity to prepare a few short biographical addresses on various Christians. For one of these addresses I spoke on John & Betty Stam. For another one I spoke of the life of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. I’m sure many of you are familiar with his life, but let me tell the story again…

We'll start the story near the end, on July 21, 1861. It was on this day that nearly 61,000 men fought in what was the first major battle of the American Civil War. Over the previous years the United States had fractured and split with many southern states seceding from the union to form the Confederate States of America. America had become two nations, the Federals or the Union in the north and the Confederates or the Rebels in the south. And these nations were at war, state fighting state, sometimes even brother fighting brother. It split a country, it split churches, it split families. On July 21 these two nations met on the plains outside a small Virginia town called Manassas.

On that afternoon a battle raged. Already thousands of men had fallen. The Federal forces pushed hard against the Confederate army until it looked as if the line might break and the battle would be lost. One of the Southern Generals, General Bee, had already seen his forces fight a long and devastating battle. He had seen many of his men die or leave the battle terribly wounded. Though he tried to rally the men who remained, they were tired and terrified and he just couldn't convince them to follow him. He spurred his horse and rode over to Thomas Jackson who commanded the brigade next to his. Pulling to a stop near the general he called out “General, they are beating us back!” Jackson's reply was short and calm, “Then we will give them the bayonet.” Jackson's confidence inspired Bee. Galloping back to his troops he called to them “Look! There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!” Inspired by Jackson's stand, Bee led his troops in a charge and was killed in the effort.

But the Confederates won the battle that day, though between the two armies nearly 5,000 men were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. On that day a legend was born, the legend of General "Stonewall" Jackson. The man who had stood fearlessly like a stone wall in the middle of the battle would quickly become one of the most famous generals in American history and establish himself as one of the greatest military minds of all-time. But there was far more to Jackson than his military ability. He was also a man who loved God and sought to honor him in every part of his life.

Let's go back to the beginning of this story.

Continued from Part 1

Shortly after the birth of baby Helen, John and Betty Stam received their posting to the city of Tsingteh. And this brings us back to where we began in the beginning of the first part. After only a couple of weeks in their new home the Communists took over the city, took John and Betty captive, plundered their home and threw them in prison. And yet, as you remember, they rejoiced, trusting in God.

And now they were in prison, being held for ransom. The soldiers saw baby Helen and thought that this baby would prove to be a problem--she might slow down her parents as they followed the army. In front of John and Betty they talk about killing her. And then a strange thing happened. One of the men who had been tossed into prison by the Communist soldiers protested. He said, "The baby has done nothing worthy of death!" The soldiers told him, "It's your life or hers." The man said, "I am willing." And just like that the soldiers struck him down and killed him, leaving the baby alone and unharmed. No one knows who the man was or why he would do such a brave thing.

Early the next morning the soldiers woke John and Betty and they all left the city, John walking and Betty riding on a horse. They started riding toward the town of Miaosheo. John had planned on going to the city that day anyway and waiting for him there was a friend, a man known as Evangelist Lo. As the soldiers marched into Miaosheo they took Lo captive. They asked him what he did for a living and he told them that he distributed tracts. They apparently didn't know what that meant so they let him go. He hurried away, though he would return soon enough.

The soldiers pillaged the town just like they had pillaged the last one, taking anything that was valuable. John and Betty were hauled into a home that would serve as a jail and a guard watched them through the night. Betty was allowed to be free within that room, but John was tied in a standing position so he could not rest or sleep.

It was the next day, a Saturday morning, that the soldiers came into John and Betty's room and told them to take off their clothes, to walk out of the house in just their long underwear. They tightly tied their hands behind their backs and led them out. John walked barefoot, having given his socks to his wife to protect her feet. They left the baby behind; Betty had tucked her into her little sleeping bag and then nestled her into a big pile of bedding. The soldiers forgot all about little Helen.

It was a dreary December day in the city of Tsingteh when John and Betty heard a rumor that Communist soldiers were drawing near to the city. The Communists were battling for control of the country and, of course, hated Christians or anyone else who would bring Western influence to their country. At the time the missionaries were not concerned; since they had moved to the city, just two weeks ago, rumors had been circulating but nothing had happened. They had been assured that government forces had come into their province to fight against the Communists. An hour later a man came running down the street shouting that the Communists were only a couple of miles away and would be upon the city in no time. Now the danger was clear. John and Betty grabbed a few supplies but they couldn't find a way out of the city. Before they were able to flee, the soldiers surrounded the city, climbed the walls and opened the gates. There was no way to escape.

Very close to the city gate was the missionary home and it did not take long before the soldiers came upon it. The soldiers barged in and demanded to know the names of the people there; they demanded to know where they were from. Obviously two Americans would stand out in a small Chinese city. They took all the medicine they could find, all the money, all the valuables. John and Betty responded by brewing up some tea and serving each of the soldiers cake. But soon they were hauled off and put in the small local prison. They were told that they would be released only for a ransom of twenty thousand dollars. Read this letter that John wrote from prison--he wrote it to China Inland Mission, the missions organization that had posted them to China.

Dear Brethren,

My wife, baby, and myself are today in the hands of the Communists, in the city of Tsingteh. Their demand is twenty thousand dollars for our release.

All our possessions and stores are in their hands, but we praise God for peace in our hearts and a meal tonight. God grant you wisdom in what you do, and us fortitude, courage, and peace of heart. He is able and a wonderful Friend in such a time.

Things happened so quickly this a.m. They were in the city just a few hours after the ever-present rumors really became alarming, so that we could not prepare to leave in time. We were just too late.

The Lord bless and guide you, and as for us, may God be glorified whether by life or by death.

Here is a man captured by ruthless bandits, in prison with his wife and baby daughter. And his concern is not for life or for death, but only for the glory of God.

We'll return to this most important day. But first let's go back to the beginning.

The book is always better than the movie, right? It seems that way to me, even with movies as good as the Lord of the Rings series. The movies were amazing, but the books were still better. It seems inevitable that Unbroken will appear on the silver screen before long (and, if the rumors are to be believed, it will star Nicholas Cage). Before it does, make sure you read the book. Unbroken is, in a word, amazing—easily one of the best books I read in 2010. It’s written by Laura Hillenbrand who also penned Seabiscuit. This new book has shot straight to #2 on the New York Times list of bestsellers just days after its release.

Unbroken tells the tale of Louie Zamperini, a character who is so much larger than life that I can’t believe I hadn’t encountered him before. Zamperini grew up in California in the 1930’s, a troublesome kid who was constantly stealing, constantly fighting, constantly getting into trouble. He was that kid, the kid who was known by the police, the kid who was every teacher’s nightmare. He was also lightning fast, eventually becoming a member of the 1936 U.S. Olympic team where he ran the 5,000 meter race and even had the opportunity to meet Adolf Hitler.

War came in 1941 and, like so many men his age, Zamperini joined up, enlisting in the United States Army Air Force. He was made bombardier in a B-24 bomber and posted to Hawaii. He took advantage of all the world had to offer, drinking and carousing with the best (or worst) of them. On May 27, 1943, while searching the ocean for a crashed plane, his own plane suffered mechanical failure and plunged into the ocean. Zamperini survived the crash along with two other members of the crew. They were adrift in the Pacific for 47 days, living off whatever rain fell from the sky and whatever food they could somehow pluck from the ocean. Though one of the men eventually succumbed to starvation, the two who remained were eventually “rescued” by the Japanese Navy, some 2,000 miles from where the plane had crashed.

Zamperini’s war was about to get far worse.

Last night my wife and I were reminiscing about this web site, about my growing career as a writer (at least I hope it’s growing) and about the church contexts that produced me, that produced this blog. As we spoke I realized that I’ve never really discussed the genesis of this site and, by extension, the church I was part of when I began writing. I spent about 5 years in quite a poor church after tossing aside Reformed theology and this site really grew out of that experience. I thought it might be interesting to go back a few years and talk about those days. I sat down to write and soon found that this is going to have to be a multi-day kind of article. But it’s biographical, so I hope you can at least find some human interest in it. Let me start by telling you a little bit about me…

I grew up within the Reformed tradition and with a firm grounding in Reformation theology. My parents were both saved near the end of their time at college and both were saved after growing up in unbelieving homes. They heard the gospel through Pentecostal friends who faithfully prayed for them and led them to the Lord. Naturally they, too, became Pentecostal. However, shortly after becoming Christians and getting married, they headed to Europe for a honeymoon (and later to live for a while) and found themselves at Francis Schaeffer’s L’Abri. It was there that they came face-to-face with sound theology and this theology would forever shape them. I was baptized as a child in an Anglican church (they were getting closer to the Reformed tradition) and soon thereafter my folks became members at a PCC congregation (Presbyterian Church of Canada) in Toronto.

My parents were Presbyterian at heart and my earliest church memories are of the sweet fellowship of that Presbyterian church. Many of the members of that church remain dear family friends even now. Eventually we left that congregation to be part of a plant in the nearby suburb of Unionville—a church plant that soon disintegrated in ugly circumstances brought about by one of the members.

Around that time my parents become friends with the pastor of a nearby church that was in the Dutch Reformed tradition and before long we started attending that body (it was a Canadian Reformed Church for those who just have to know). We remained in those churches for many years, except for a year-long trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, during which my father studied at the Free Church of Scotland seminary. But from the time I was in grade school to just about the time I graduated from high school, I was part of the Dutch Reformed tradition, despite having no Dutch blood. We moved around a little bit in these years, eventually settling in Ancaster, Ontario, but what was always true was that we were the only non-Dutch family in the churches and schools we attended.

Today we come to our second-to-last reading in Arnold Dallimore’s life of Charles Spurgeon. I’m grateful that some of you continue to read along with me even at this plodding pace of a couple of chapters per week.

This week’s chapters focused on just two aspects of Spurgeon’s life—his writing and the so-called Down-Grade Controversy.

Spurgeon was a prolific author. I’ve long been under the impression that the majority of the books published under his name were simply sermons that had been repurposed, but according to Dallimore he did write a very large number of original works. Of course his books of sermons were his most popular writings, being distributed in the hundreds of millions and being translated into all kinds of different languages from around the world. Among the most popular of his books were The Treasury of David, Commenting and Commentaries and John Plowman’s Talk. And, of course, we can’t forget the devotional works Morning by Morning and Evening by Evening, classics that are read and treasured today.

Besides the 140 books and thousands of sermons he preached, Spurgeon also wrote monthly for The Sword and the Trowel and maintained voluminous correspondence, typically writing some 500 letters each week (and, as Dallimore points out, he had to do this with a pen that had to be dipped in ink every few seconds…and he often had to do this while suffering from terrible arthritis). Biographers who wish to reconstruct the life of the man have a vast and almost insurmountable amount of writing to turn to.

I love biography. That’s probably the tenth time I’ve begun a review with those words, yet it’s no less true now than the first time I penned them. The more I read of biography, the more I am enamored with it and the more I see just how valuable it is to my life and faith.

I was in Virginia recently, spending a week on vacation. I decided the occasion merited a biography of a Virginian. That led me to choose between Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. In the end Jackson won in a shootout. I turned to the epic work by James Robertson. Written in 1997, this biography remains the definitive word on Jackson. I can’t imagine how it will ever be equaled.

Over the years Jackson has been variously portrayed as a great general and a great Christian. It seems that few biographers have managed to do equal justice to the two most notable emphases of this extraordinary man. On the one hand he was a brilliant military strategist who time and again relied on speed and surprise to catch his enemy off-guard. On the other hand, he was a man who deeply loved the Lord and who cherished his relationship with the Savior. He was a man who suffered much from his earliest days to his final days. Fatherless at two, orphaned at seven, he also witnessed the death of two of his siblings, two of his children and his first wife. Some of his closest friends died and he was estranged from others by the war that devastated his nation. Yet through it all Jackson remained absolutely fixed upon the firm foundation of God’s sovereignty. Always he placed his trust in God and always he sought to submit himself to God’s will and to delight in God’s providence.

The facts of Jackson’s life are well-known so I will forego those to comment instead on the lessons I’ve learned from Jackson and to comment on what makes this biography so sublime.

While I was on vacation I did a lot of reading about Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a man I’ve long admired but one I had barely gotten to know. Having returned home, I turned to a biography of his contemporary, Robert E. Lee.

In the foreword to this particular biography, author Emory Thomas has some very useful things to say about writing biography. Though it applies to Lee in particular, I think we can extend it to any historical figure. He warns against the tendency to deify subjects and shows, rightly I think, that heroism tells as much about the society that admires as it tells about the figure himself.

Here is what Thomas says:

Lee, the enigma, seldom if ever revealed himself while he lived. To understand him, it is necessary to look beyond his words and see, for example, the true nature of the lighthouse keeper Lee encountered during his surveying mission in 1835. It is also important to peer beyond Lee’s words and recall what he did as well as what he said. Sometimes the existential Lee contradicted the verbal Lee.

There is a third caveat to understanding Lee. In addition to looking behind and beyond his words, it is well to remember that Lee was once possessed of flesh and blood. This is important because so many have made so much of Lee during the years since he lived that legend, image and myth have supplanted reality. Lee has become a hero essentially smaller than life.

People usually venerate as a hero someone who exemplifies (or who they think exemplifies) virtues which they admire or to which they aspire. Heroism thus reveals more about the society that admires than about the hero. Lee has been several sorts of American hero, and within the American South he has attained the status of demigod. Over time Lee has been a Christ figure, a symbol of national reconciliation, an exalted expression of bourgeois values, and much, much more. In life Lee was both more and less than his legend.

The time has come—indeed, the time is long overdue—to review and rethink Lee alive. History needs Robert E. Lee whole.

Reading these few paragraphs gave me a lot to chew on (to the point that I put the book down for a day and just thought about it). I think Thomas is essentially correct. Looking at this from the perspective of a Christian, I can see that at any time Christians have certain character traits, certain virtues that they value above all. What we tend to do, I think, is to find heroes who displayed these characteristics, and we then describe our heroes as if they were only these characteristics. When we do this, we make our heroes both more and less than what they truly were—we make much of those few strengths and ignore other strengths and inevitable weaknesses. And in this way we miss out on many of the lessons we ought to learn from them. Along the way, we tell a lot about ourselves but not nearly so much about these old heroes.

What do you think? Is Thomas on to something here? Do we, as Christians, tend to fall into this trap, where we create and even desire one-dimension heroes?

Today we continue reading Arnold Dallimore’s Spurgeon: A New Biography. Two weeks ago we read the first couple of chapters and, after a one-week vacation, we’re back today to look at chapters 3-6.

The four chapters we read for today covered a lot of ground (which is both a benefit and a drawback of a relatively short biography). We began in the days immediately following Spurgeon’s conversion, progressed to the days where he began his very first efforts to share the gospel with others and ended with marriage. Along the way he felt God’s call to preach, he became the Boy Preacher who accepted his first pastorate at just seventeen years of age, he was called to New Park Street Baptist Church and he fell in love with and soon married Susannah Thompson.

Let me mention just a few of the things that stood out to me.

Today’s guest blogger is a dear friend to Aileen and me and, as it happens, the granddaughter of Arnold Dallimore, whose biography of Spurgeon we only just began to read together. I asked Becky if she would be willing to share a few memories of her grandfather.

*****

My grandpa was a man who could sleep anywhere. He was a small man with a big voice. He walked briskly, swinging his arms at his sides while he moved. He rarely left the house without his favourite red cap. He loved wonton soup. My grandpa always carried around two essential accessories: a shoe horn and a black, plastic comb. Each night, between seven and eight, he watched "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy" (which, I am confident, based on his at home performances, he could have won). My grandpa was a world renowned author, church planter, pastor, preacher, poet, great man of God… and, according to my kindergarten journal, my best friend.

My grandpa loved to tell stories. I spent many hours, snuggled tightly between him and my grandma in the front seat of their car, listening to stories about his childhood in London, Ontario, his tomato soup (made from ketchup and water) years at Seminary in Toronto and the years he spent building and growing Cottam Baptist Church. My favourite stories were those he told about his mother, Mabel. Legend has it, that upon hearing the news of her death, a streak of his hair turned from brown to white.

My grandpa loved a good bargain. He was what many would have considered poor his entire life. He often told me that he'd never had two nickels to rub together. He would not have known what life would have been like with a little bit of extra money. Despite that, my grandpa always dressed well and he would often share the story of how much a garment had cost him and where he had purchased it from. He had a brown "Neiman Marcus" sweater that he had purchased at a thrift store. Every time he wore that sweater, he would remind me that it had been an outstanding deal.