A short, earnest novel which seeks to evangelize by example.
A pensive debut work of Christian fiction that uses the story of a reflective father to explore how people grow toward, or away from, faith over a lifetime.
Thirty-year-old John Christian is content with his life when he receives a startling phone call: His childhood friend Derrick has unexpectedly died. As John recalls his friend’s life, he begins to wonder whether Derrick’s once-lost soul found its way to Christ. His death becomes the impetus for personal introspection. John, a man of faith, is grateful that, whatever disasters befall him, he’s headed toward a home in heaven. Subsequent chapters address various challenges to his faith during his lifetime, including the temptations of disobedience, sex and general carousing. John admits that as a youth, he was as susceptible as anyone to worldly temptations, but his occasional stumbles were outweighed by his overall commitment to saying “no” in God’s name. However, readers may find that John’s conception of a faithful life is somewhat sterile: Christians don’t, in his view, ever curse, use addictive substances, sass their parents, engage in lusty activities, or deviate from the conceptions in Epistles of Paul, and he offers New Testament verses to support these notions. As a result, the book may find a readership among conservative Christians but not among those who engage in more liberal theology. John is convinced that those who don’t live according to literal interpretations of the Gospels won’t make it to heaven, but he has no malice for those who fall outside of salvation’s bounds. Griffin’s book is a quick, involving read, and some will find John a comforting, familiar character. His storytelling manner is given to puns and colloquialisms (“[W]e would make plans to go out when our schedules would agree—or when we just made them agree”) which helps to lighten the delivery. Still, the book’s absolutism is sometimes discomfiting; for example, the idea that single people can’t support the concept of marriage “because they aren’t married” is otherwise unexamined.
A short, earnest novel which seeks to evangelize by example.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1462732531
Page Count: 116
Publisher: CrossBooks Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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