Book Reviews
Gregory Boyle
Free Press, A Division of Simon & Shuster Inc.
Reviewed by: Lloyd A. Bruce, October 2011
I was introduced to this book by my friend and colleague Hank Dixon when I stopped at his home this summer on my Sabbatical Journey across Canada. I read a chapter of Hank's copy and knew I needed to get my own copy.
When I arrived at the Shalom Prayer Centre in Mt. Angels, Oregon a copy was promiently displayed in the bookstore and once I picked it up I could not put it down.
Father Gregory Boyle, S.J. has worked with for the past 20 years at Homeboy Industries, a ministry to gang members in Los Angeles. The book in a very touch way tells the stories of these these young people who probably strike fear in most Americans. Men and women from the toughest neighborhoods, have shot and killed others, and have done time in prison - a Fr. Boyle tells of the power of love to change lives. He sees beyond these experiences and reminds us that we are all deserving of God’s love. These young people are not monsters but, at least on some level, scared kids who want a purpose in life. When they decide to leave gang life, they come to Boyle, known as “G,” and to Homeboy Industries for job training, education, career placement, tattoo removal, and counselling.
In Tattoos on the Heart, Boyle shares many of the lessons he has learned since he founded Homeboy Industries in 1988. His memoir is not about solving the ills of gangs, guns, and poverty; it is about the Christian call to live with the outcasts and the poor. And while Homeboy Industries has helped many get out of gangs and find jobs, Boyle is not focused on success and outcomes. He is simply present in the streets, the jails, the homes, and the lives of the people.
With deep sensitivity, Fr. Boyle links incredible stories with important lessons.
“If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.”
“Close both eyes see with the other one. Then we are no longer saddled by the burden of our persistent judgments our ceaseless withholding our constant exclusion. Our sphere has widened and we find ourselves quite unexpectedly in a new expansive location in a place of endless acceptance and infinite love.”
I cannot recommend this book enough.
Lloyd Bruce, October 2011
Naseem Rakha
Broadway Books
Reviewed by Lloyd Bruce, October 2011
In was introduced to this book by Tom O'Connor upon my arrival in Oregon as part of my Sabbatical Journey this summer. It was a unique experience to have visited not only many of the locations in the state of Oregon where the book is set - but to have also visited Oregon State Penitentiary which figures prominently in the book.
Irene and Nate Stanley are living a quiet and contented life with their two children, Bliss and Shep, on their family farm in southern Illinois when Nate suddenly announces he’s been offered a job as a deputy sheriff in Oregon. Irene fights her husband. She does not want to uproot her family and has deep misgivings about the move. Nevertheless, the family leaves, and they are just settling into their life in Oregon’s high desert when the unthinkable happens. Fifteen-year-old Shep is shot and killed during an apparent robbery in their home. The murderer, a young mechanic with a history of assault, robbery, and drug-related offences, is caught and sentenced to death.
Shep’s murder sends the Stanley family into a tailspin, with each member attempting to cope with the tragedy in his or her own way. Irene’s approach is to live, week after week, waiting for Daniel Robbin’s execution and the justice she feels she and her family deserve. Those weeks turn into months and then years. Ultimately, faced with a growing sense that Robbin’s death will not stop her pain, Irene takes the extraordinary and clandestine step of reaching out to her son’s killer. The two forge an unlikely connection that remains a secret from her family and friends.
Years later, Irene receives the notice that she had craved for so long—Daniel Robbin has stopped his appeals and will be executed within a month. This announcement shakes the very core of the Stanley family. Irene, it turns out, isn’t the only one with a shocking secret to hide. As the execution date nears, the Stanleys must face difficult truths and find a way to come to terms with the past.
The Crying Tree is a book about Restorative Justice and the journey of the human heart.
Hiram Johnson
LangMarc Publishing
Dr. Stephen Seamands, Professor of Christian Doctrine at Asbury Theological Seminary, has written the foreword. Dr. Maxie Dunnam, Chancellor of Asbury, Dr. Myron Madden, AAPC Diplomate (Ret) and former President of the College of Chaplains, FSU Head Coach Bobby Bowden, Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney, and author/speaker Margaret Therkelsen have all personally endorsed the book.
The message to its readers is one of hope and redemption over the most tragic circumstances: a 17 year-old car passenger dying on Christmas Day. Her father was killed three years earlier in a car accident, and her 15 year-old sister was also killed in an unrelated car accident nine months later.
The book is designed to help the general reader overcome any lingering emotional baggage by achieving a more in depth understanding of the divine dynamics of guilt, shame, grace and forgiveness. Topics include depression, grief, alcoholism, suicide, childhood tapes, embracing our weaknesses, co-dependency, prayer, blessing, intimacy, joy, the value of scars, and finding redemptive purpose(s) and meaning in tragedy, heartache and loss.
A true story of one's spiritual pilgrimage through trauma and suffering to healing and wholeness through the transforming power of forgiveness. "The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it." French Philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943)
The following book review is written by CPSP and AAPC Diplomate Jim Pruett, Ph.D., Department of Pastoral Care and Education of Carolinas Medical Center.
Johnson tells his story with both courage and transparency but also models how to reframe the "dark side" of personality in order to claim redemption. As a college junior he was drinking and driving and getting distracted by a friend. The result was a tragic accident in which a high school girl was killed. Johnson resultantly experienced sustained depression, shame, guilt, doubt, and recapitulated family of origin issues that led to psychiatric hospitalization.
Midst his "dark night of the soul" Johnson found grace, his deeper self, transformation, re-contextualization of life, and both personal and professional formation. He models the value of engaging the forbidden at new depths of the soul while finding new insights regarding how God is actively present in the process. He describes his fears, loneliness, questions, and emptiness drawing the reader into his chaos, confusion and pain. He finds meaning by utilizing Scripture, stories of others such as Abraham Lincoln, and the writings of theologians.
Pertinent themes addressed include the role of alcoholism, the need for God's power, guilt as bondage with unconscious payoffs, conquering shame and receiving the blessing, common grace, forgiveness midst self confrontation at the cross, positive responses to adversity, and meaningful suffering. This reader experienced tears of sadness and joy connecting with the writer's soul and inspired by his reflections on his journey. Thus, clients have been encouraged to read Tragic Redemption.
Client reactions to Johnson's story have included identification, increased ability to articulate feelings and interpret personal process, self-confrontation of guilt and shame as well as acting out behavior, the cost of tragedy, redefinition of grace, and hope. They have recommended the book to others. Tragic Redemption is far more than a mere autobiography, sad story with a good ending, or guidebook with simple platitudes. It provides an opportunity to gauge the authenticity and integrity of one's life while asking very important questions. To what degree do I engage myself and the transpersonal? How do I use tragedy to purify and find courage? Have I been willing to travel to places where I facilitate others to go? How do I model by word, deed, and presence the ability to go to life's frightening, forbidden places?
"Repressions are the power that makes one work against all the avowed and willful intentions. They are strong because they are deep in the vows of the child of the past." Myron Madden "Hope is a memory of the future." Gabriel Marcel "When we avoid pain, we avoid healing." author "We belong to the power we choose to obey." J.B. Phillips "A thorn in the flesh is nothing in comparison to a thorn in our conscience." Charles Spurgeon "What happens within us is more important than what happens to us. We can not always choose the latter, but we can choose the former." David Seamands "Within every process of forgiveness, there is enshrined a great agony." Macintosh "Shame is a hemorrhage of the soul." Jean Paul Sartre "What comes into our mind when we first think of God is the most important thing about us." A.W. Tozer "I believe that Christ died for me because its incredible; I believe that He rose from the dead because its impossible." author unknown "The church is the only institution in the world whose membership is based on unworthiness." Morrison "The problem is that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for, they have the means but no meaning." Viktor Frankl
Jonathan Burnside, Reader in Biblical Law at Bristol University, has published a groundbreaking book entitled "God, Justice and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible" (Oxford University Press USA)
At nearly 600 pages this is a massive new work of fresh scholarship on biblical justice and its relevance to contemporary society. Paperback copies are available exclusively from the Jubilee Centre website.
At nearly 600 pages this is a massive new work of fresh scholarship on biblical justice and its relevance to contemporary society. Paperback copies are available exclusively from the Jubilee Centre website.
Not Guilty For Loving The Hated
TITLE: Not Guilty For Loving The Hated
AUTHOR: Steve Mensah
PUBLISHER: Asempa Publishers
NO. OF PAGES : 70
REVIEWER: ENIMIL ASHON (Editor of the Ghanaian Times one of Ghana’s oldest newspapers)
Did you know this? In the USA some prisons have such facilities as tennis courts, swimming pools and golf courses.
In Ghana, four different prisons with a total population of 330 inmates had 229 beds, 194 mattresses, 272 blankets and 185 cover cloths. In some prisons in the third world prisoners eat, defecate and urinate in the same environment.”
Get read for this: a 1976 survey of the British penal system revealed that “except in a few of the newest prisons there are no lavatories in cells in England. In older prisons, six lavatories per 110 men is not unusual. A bath may be taken once a week and underwear changed twice”
Again in Ghana, the CHRAJ survey found that “sometimes the quantity of food served a full grown adult will not suffice a twelve year old boy”
In the third World, generally feeding funds for prisoners “are lower than US 10 cents per day”
These facts and figures are contained in “NOT GUILTY”, a book written with one aim in mind: that is to prick the conscience of the Christian community to do something urgent to help people in prison.
Answering the question “WHO ARE IN PRISON?” the Author points out the various categories of prisoners some of whom have been there for 18 years without trial, and some of whom are mere “circumstantial prisoners” who are there not because they are guilty but because they could not have the tongue or the money to defend themselves.
It is not uncommon to hear expressions of anger by people in the third world who think that it is awful waste of resources to spend even a pesewa (cent) on prisoners. But the author, in making a case for “these hated ones” points out that inasmuch as Jesus came for these, the believer has no option but to have compassion on prisoners, and that this compassion must translate into donations of clothes, bedding, food, drugs etc.
This is a charge for the church to keep, says the author as he urges churches and fellowships to penetrate the iron gates of prisons with the word of God (the concept for the cover illustration). There in the prison the target of Christian action should not only be the prisoner but also the prison warder and the ex-convict.
Churches should also help the prisoners to learn a trade or acquire skills. The book draws attention to cases of ex-convicts in need of rehabilitation. There are also examples of the “circumstantial prisoners” who need help to get a lawyer to appeal against their conviction.
All these examples are by way of introducing the Prison Fellowship ministry. In doing so, the author tells a story which for this reviewer, is a classical example of the fact that even our tribulations can be used by God for His glory. It is the story of CHARLES COLSON.
If you are reading this review be sincere with me; Did you ever imagine that out of the scandals of Watergate leading to the impeachment of the US President and the imprisonment of aides etc something good and lasting has resulted?
One of the victims of Watergate was Charles Colson known in his hey days as the “hatchet man of President Richard Nixon” –very powerful . In the Watergate trial he was found guilty and jailed. But Colson through his jail term became a Christian. After serving his sentence he determined to do something to change the terrible situation he found in Prison. He formed the Prison Fellowship International, a fellowship that operates in 83 countries and one of the world’s most profund non-governmental organisations that supports prison work.
In Ghana, the story is told of Krobo Edusei, Minister in the first republic who was sent to the Nsawam prisons after a 1966 coup. He was said to have remarked that if had known he would ever be a prisoner he would have made the place airconditioned during his term as a Minister. Ghanaians also read the story of Mr. Francis Selormey a former Deputy Finance Minister at the Nsawam prison cells where he is sentenced for certain crimes against the state. He told a Reporter that if he had the chance to be Minister again he would approve more funds for prisons.
Meanwhile, even as the prison cells remain as they are the author cautions the world of one disturbing trend “too many people who leave prison return to prison”.
This book has been written by a Christian to fellow Christians, drawing the attention of the churches and fellowships to the field that are ripe in the prison, that is prisoner conversion and salvation.
TITLE: Not Guilty For Loving The Hated
AUTHOR: Steve Mensah
PUBLISHER: Asempa Publishers
NO. OF PAGES : 70
REVIEWER: ENIMIL ASHON (Editor of the Ghanaian Times one of Ghana’s oldest newspapers)
Did you know this? In the USA some prisons have such facilities as tennis courts, swimming pools and golf courses.
In Ghana, four different prisons with a total population of 330 inmates had 229 beds, 194 mattresses, 272 blankets and 185 cover cloths. In some prisons in the third world prisoners eat, defecate and urinate in the same environment.”
Get read for this: a 1976 survey of the British penal system revealed that “except in a few of the newest prisons there are no lavatories in cells in England. In older prisons, six lavatories per 110 men is not unusual. A bath may be taken once a week and underwear changed twice”
Again in Ghana, the CHRAJ survey found that “sometimes the quantity of food served a full grown adult will not suffice a twelve year old boy”
In the third World, generally feeding funds for prisoners “are lower than US 10 cents per day”
These facts and figures are contained in “NOT GUILTY”, a book written with one aim in mind: that is to prick the conscience of the Christian community to do something urgent to help people in prison.
Answering the question “WHO ARE IN PRISON?” the Author points out the various categories of prisoners some of whom have been there for 18 years without trial, and some of whom are mere “circumstantial prisoners” who are there not because they are guilty but because they could not have the tongue or the money to defend themselves.
It is not uncommon to hear expressions of anger by people in the third world who think that it is awful waste of resources to spend even a pesewa (cent) on prisoners. But the author, in making a case for “these hated ones” points out that inasmuch as Jesus came for these, the believer has no option but to have compassion on prisoners, and that this compassion must translate into donations of clothes, bedding, food, drugs etc.
This is a charge for the church to keep, says the author as he urges churches and fellowships to penetrate the iron gates of prisons with the word of God (the concept for the cover illustration). There in the prison the target of Christian action should not only be the prisoner but also the prison warder and the ex-convict.
Churches should also help the prisoners to learn a trade or acquire skills. The book draws attention to cases of ex-convicts in need of rehabilitation. There are also examples of the “circumstantial prisoners” who need help to get a lawyer to appeal against their conviction.
All these examples are by way of introducing the Prison Fellowship ministry. In doing so, the author tells a story which for this reviewer, is a classical example of the fact that even our tribulations can be used by God for His glory. It is the story of CHARLES COLSON.
If you are reading this review be sincere with me; Did you ever imagine that out of the scandals of Watergate leading to the impeachment of the US President and the imprisonment of aides etc something good and lasting has resulted?
One of the victims of Watergate was Charles Colson known in his hey days as the “hatchet man of President Richard Nixon” –very powerful . In the Watergate trial he was found guilty and jailed. But Colson through his jail term became a Christian. After serving his sentence he determined to do something to change the terrible situation he found in Prison. He formed the Prison Fellowship International, a fellowship that operates in 83 countries and one of the world’s most profund non-governmental organisations that supports prison work.
In Ghana, the story is told of Krobo Edusei, Minister in the first republic who was sent to the Nsawam prisons after a 1966 coup. He was said to have remarked that if had known he would ever be a prisoner he would have made the place airconditioned during his term as a Minister. Ghanaians also read the story of Mr. Francis Selormey a former Deputy Finance Minister at the Nsawam prison cells where he is sentenced for certain crimes against the state. He told a Reporter that if he had the chance to be Minister again he would approve more funds for prisons.
Meanwhile, even as the prison cells remain as they are the author cautions the world of one disturbing trend “too many people who leave prison return to prison”.
This book has been written by a Christian to fellow Christians, drawing the attention of the churches and fellowships to the field that are ripe in the prison, that is prisoner conversion and salvation.
BOOKS WRITTEN BY PROF. DR. WIMANJAYA LIOTOHE, JAKARTA
1. A CRAZY MAN CHOSEN BY GOD
The author is a prison chaplain, but he himself was put into prison due to writing three controversial books: Prime sins, Prime lifes and Prime sorrows, revealing the 33 years dictatorship of Indonesian new order regime 1965-1998. On January 23, 1994 the ex-toppled-down president gathered 400 military officers in his private ranch and declared Wimanya, the author of these books as "a crazyman" who dared to oppose him. Five times his land and houses confiscated, tortured and kidnapped, nearly killed but miraculously released by God's hands, seven times poisoned by intelligence-service but survived, threatened to be shot at the airport by military snipers, his family terrorized, twentytwo times court sessioned, but at last he won the case and free at last sentenced void and unguilty. Pope John Paul II sent him a letter of appreciation, a rare case to a non-catholic evangelist. The pope and the author are certainly sure that GOd must have chosen this "crazy man" undergoing to many miracles to survive.
2. THE STAR OF HOPE
The imprisoned chaplain Wimanjaya, before and after his two years imprisonment, had the chance to attend several international conferences on prison service and make several comparisons with the conditions of prisons abroad to the Indonesian prisons. The book not only displays data and facts, but also serves as an effective guidance and consult for local prison service workers, especially for prison service workers in developing counitries such as Indonesia. Mutual learnings and exchanging experiences are surely beneficial for international prison service workers.
3. HE IS THE GREATEST
The author proves how great Jesus is based on facts about how the historical Jesus and the biblical version, that Jesus is more then an ordinary man, teacher, philosopher, advocate, medical doctor, high priest, king, prophet, superman, supreme judge, angel, Messias, socialist, peacemaker, reformator, hero, throughout the ages, and reveals Jesus special high status in the holy book of the other big religion. A portrait of high morality for personal faith motivation for lay men and non converted.
4. PROPHECIES' REALITIES AROUND US
Is Obama presidentcy a miracle? Is Aceh and south-east Asian tsunami out of biblical context? Are corruption, colution and nepotism biblical phenomena? Is terrorism already prophecied in the Bible? Two thousand years ago there were no television and handphones, but Jesus and his disciples predicted them already! Israeli diasphora a curse, but Israeli come back a blessing? Is the Indonesian archipelago the end of the world? Is the European Union the second rise of Roman empire according to Daniel's and John's revelations? Why hte USA becomes a world super power? Is the next super power China or European Union? Why som many anti-Christ movements these last days?
All the answers are available in the book.
All four books are available in Indonesian and in English edition.
Contact the author for more information at wimanjayalio@yahoo.com
1. A CRAZY MAN CHOSEN BY GOD
The author is a prison chaplain, but he himself was put into prison due to writing three controversial books: Prime sins, Prime lifes and Prime sorrows, revealing the 33 years dictatorship of Indonesian new order regime 1965-1998. On January 23, 1994 the ex-toppled-down president gathered 400 military officers in his private ranch and declared Wimanya, the author of these books as "a crazyman" who dared to oppose him. Five times his land and houses confiscated, tortured and kidnapped, nearly killed but miraculously released by God's hands, seven times poisoned by intelligence-service but survived, threatened to be shot at the airport by military snipers, his family terrorized, twentytwo times court sessioned, but at last he won the case and free at last sentenced void and unguilty. Pope John Paul II sent him a letter of appreciation, a rare case to a non-catholic evangelist. The pope and the author are certainly sure that GOd must have chosen this "crazy man" undergoing to many miracles to survive.
2. THE STAR OF HOPE
The imprisoned chaplain Wimanjaya, before and after his two years imprisonment, had the chance to attend several international conferences on prison service and make several comparisons with the conditions of prisons abroad to the Indonesian prisons. The book not only displays data and facts, but also serves as an effective guidance and consult for local prison service workers, especially for prison service workers in developing counitries such as Indonesia. Mutual learnings and exchanging experiences are surely beneficial for international prison service workers.
3. HE IS THE GREATEST
The author proves how great Jesus is based on facts about how the historical Jesus and the biblical version, that Jesus is more then an ordinary man, teacher, philosopher, advocate, medical doctor, high priest, king, prophet, superman, supreme judge, angel, Messias, socialist, peacemaker, reformator, hero, throughout the ages, and reveals Jesus special high status in the holy book of the other big religion. A portrait of high morality for personal faith motivation for lay men and non converted.
4. PROPHECIES' REALITIES AROUND US
Is Obama presidentcy a miracle? Is Aceh and south-east Asian tsunami out of biblical context? Are corruption, colution and nepotism biblical phenomena? Is terrorism already prophecied in the Bible? Two thousand years ago there were no television and handphones, but Jesus and his disciples predicted them already! Israeli diasphora a curse, but Israeli come back a blessing? Is the Indonesian archipelago the end of the world? Is the European Union the second rise of Roman empire according to Daniel's and John's revelations? Why hte USA becomes a world super power? Is the next super power China or European Union? Why som many anti-Christ movements these last days?
All the answers are available in the book.
All four books are available in Indonesian and in English edition.
Contact the author for more information at wimanjayalio@yahoo.com