I often wonder if my Canadian perspective keeps me from really understanding race relationships as they exist in the United States. Things are different here. I live in a city where over half of the population was born outside of this nation. A trip to any public location (or even a walk around the average neighborhood) will show an incredible variety of races and backgrounds and this seems to have been Canada’s historical pattern. To be Canadian is to be diverse. Canada never embraced slavery and never had shockingly unjust Jim Crow laws to overcome. We had no Martin Luther King Jr. and, in a sense, never had as great a need for one. Racism was never systematized here as it was just a few miles south. So when I read about racial issues I read about something that comes from outside of the context I know best.

Over the weekend I began reading The Most Famous Man in America, Debby Applegate’s recent biography of Henry Ward Beecher. The book has been widely celebrated, winning the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. It was a finalist for The National Book Critics Circle Award Best Biography of 2006 and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Best Biography of 2006. It was even winner of the Frederick G. Melcher Book Award for the most significant contribution to religious liberalism in 2006 (an award distributed by the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations). As one might expect, the book has sold well and has been very widely and very well reviewed.

I have long had a bit of a fascination with John Donne. A poet and eventual clergyman who lived from 1572-1631, Donne’s poems are among my favorites. His Holy Sonnets have given me much cause to think and his early works, so often sexual and vulgar, have shown a man who underwent a clear and profound transformation in his life. From writing poetry which described forbidden and clandestine affairs that involved bribing servants, hushing siblings, and sneaking past parents in order to consummate love, Donne progressed to poetry celebrating Christ and his triumph over death.

Few recent books have so wide and so deep an impact as Arnold Dallimore’s magisterial biography of George Whitefield. The first volume, stretching from Whitefield’s birth in 1714 to his section visit to American in 1740 was published in 1970 and has since been reprinted six times. The second volume, which stretches from 1740 until Whitefield’s death in 1770, was published ten years later in 1980. It has been reprinted three times. Together the volumes comprise some 1200 pages of detailed biography. Rarely have I had a biography recommended to me by so many and by men of such distinction. Rarely have I benefited more from reading about another man’s life.

George “Bud” Day is the most decorated officer in the modern history of the U.S. military, having won (this is a chest seriously full of medals and ribbons) the Medal of Honor, Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star Medal for Valor with two Oak Leaf Clusters, Bronze Star Medal for Merit, Purple Heart with three Oak Leaf Clusters, Air Medal with nine Oak Leaf Clusters, National Order of Vietnam, Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm, and Prisoner of War Medal). His military career began in 1942 when, despite being under-sized and under-age, he managed to work his way into the U.S. Marines. He served for almost three years in the South Pacific, never seeing combat. After the war he returned home and studied law, eventually graduating with a degree in that discipline. In 1950 he joined the National Guard and, when called up a year later, applied to fly fighter jets.

The Bible tells us about three people who were privileged to see heaven on this side of the grave. All of these men, Stephen and the Apostles Paul and John, were alive when they were given a glimpse of the wonders of heaven. Don Piper, a Baptist pastor, claims to be a fourth, though unlike the other three, he first had to die first. Returning home from a conference, Piper’s car was crushed under the wheels of a truck. Though medical personnel declared him dead at the scene of the accident, ninety minutes after this accident, a pastor, waiting at the scene, was told by God to pray for the dead man. He did so, and Piper immediately returned to life. For the 90 minutes that his body lay lifeless inside the car, Piper claims to have been in heaven. He now carries with him memories of paradise and in 90 Minutes in Heaven, a book which has sold over a million copies and which has been a long-time fixture on the New York Times list of bestsellers, he seeks to encourage other Christians with a description of our eternal home.

That the name of William Wilberforce has largely been lost to history seems somehow unfair. Wilberforce was the driving force behind the abolition of slavery within the British Empire. A Member of Parliament for forty-five years, the results of his efforts are still seen and understood in Western society to this day. Though his impact was felt not only at his time, but has extended through history, few people know his name. In Amazing Grace, Eric Metaxas’ new biography of Wilberforce, which was timed to coincide with the release of a film by the same title (which was, in turn, timed to coincide with the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade) he makes the valid comparison to a scientist who discovers the cure for an inoculation against a terrible disease. As the disease is eradicated and passes out of memory, so the scientist’s name is likely to be forgotten. And this is what seems to have happened to Wilberforce.

The country of Rwanda has seen some of the worst violence and bloodshed the world has witnessed this side of the Holocaust. If ever a nation has been in need of God’s grace and favor, this is it. In 1994 the nation was devastated by a genocidal civil war that pitted the Hutus against the Tutsis. In just 100 days during April to July of that year, over one million people were killed, the vast majority of them Tutsis. There were countless massacres with thousands of people dying ever day during that period of time.

When the killing finally ended, the nation was destroyed. The economy was shattered, the nation’s infrastructure nearly ruined and the population decimated. And, of course, the people were traumatized, having seen former friends turn on each other, husbands kill wives and even the clergy willfully participating in the murder of thousands.

At a recent conference I met a gentleman who happens to edit one of those airline magazines that always competes with your legroom in an airplane. A short time ago he sent me an email and asked if I had heard of a book called Same Kind of Different as Me and recommended that I read it. He seemed like a good enough guy and the book had a great cover, so I went ahead and ordered it sight unseen (or nearly so). And what a book it turned out to be.

Same Kind of Different as Me, a book that is factual but could just as easily be fiction, tells the unlikely story of the unlikeliest of friends—Ron Hall and Denver Moore. Told in two voices, the book alternates between telling the story from the perspective of Ron and Denver.

On the face of it, or judging by the title, A Scottish Christian Heritage does not sound like the kind of book many people would enjoy. It sounds like a book that will dwell on a narrow topic and one that will be of interest to only a select group of people. But those of us who appreciate the writing ministry of Iain Murray know that what he writes is always worth reading.