Jubal Sackett - A Short Review

Another L’Amour novel from the Sackett series, Jubal Sackett was, I think, the best one I’ve read to date. Once again, Jubal is a strong role model for masculine life: self-reliant, able, decisive, loving peace but not afraid to fight. This novel was different from the others I’ve read because it prominently featured his love interest, an Indian princess.

I have long desired to live in a way that is free from modernity. I love to idea of cutting down trees, turning them into a cabin, living off the land, etc. For those who know me, this is pretty different from who I am, but I think that is a big part of the attraction for me. I’m not OK with me, sometimes. That is not, I believe, in an unhealthy way but in the sense that I know I could be more and do more with myself. A world in which there was unclaimed land and one could benefit himself simply by working hard is a world I think I would love, whatever its hardships.

Another interesting aspect of this book was the way L’Amour weaves into it some of the mysteries of history. For example, he includes a run-in with a mastodon and defending its inclusion by giving examples of far more recent witnesses to them among Native Americans than is widely believed. Another example would be the characters speaking of finding Roman coins owned by Indians. Of course, that shouldn’t be, but, again, L’Amour gives examples of these being found in Tennessee in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. I tend to like these references because they speak to me of the validity of a young earth and the family of man, descended from Adam and then Noah.

Storming Eagles - A Short Review

This book has some very good parts. To me, the best parts were those concerned with the Fallschirmjager during their heyday – really from May, 1940, to June, 1941 – about 1 year. During this period, German paratroopers made awesome contributions to victory in Holland, Belgium, Greece, and Crete. From that time forward, the realities of a slow but steady decline for Nazi Germany meant that the paratroop formations, though there were more and more of them, were little more than elite infantry.

One must be careful not to be overly positive toward anything coming out of the Third Reich, but these men did awesome feats of military accomplishment at their height. The storming of the Belgian fortress, Eben-Emael, at the opening of the battle that defeated France in May, 1940, is inspiring. A small force of paratroopers landed their gliders directly on top of the fortress and forced it to capitulate to them, opening vital roads to the advancing German conventional forces. At Crete, an entire paratroop division was landed and, with the aid of German mountain troops flown in to a captured airport, captured the island.

What I take from these accounts is the need for decisive action. This doesn’t just apply to military situations. For me, and for many others, the temptation to indecision is great. Indecision will lead to defeat in life, though. So, I hope to learn from these me. 

This book is probably best read by those truly interested in World War II and/or airborne operations and history. It is quite dry at times.

To the Far Blue Mountains - A Short Review

 

My mother and her father, my grandfather, were both huge Louis L’Amour fans. I never had been until recently. A couple of older gentlemen in my church have extensive collections of his novels, and they get me reading them from time to time. I’ve long heard that his Sackett novels were the best, so I engaged one of the gentlemen, Roy Smith, to supply me the Sackett novels in order. He has generously done so.

This is actually the second of the Sackett novels, though still concerned with the forefather of the family all the books are concerned with – Barnabas Sackett. He is a man of action, both in terms of violence when violence is called for and in a business/entrepreneurial sense. In this, he is a man to be emulated. I am too often a person of thought and not enough of action. One might think that thought is a good thing, and it normally is, in balance with action. However, when one thinks on things too long without acting, one invites fear and indecision in. These are things I struggle with, and I would be more like Barnabas Sackett, in this way.

Religion plays an interesting role in this novel and in L’Amour’s works in general. He shows Muslims in a good light, nearly always. I saw this also in his novel, The Walking Drum. However, he is also even handed toward Christians who are not too attached to the organized church. It seems to me that L’Amour is one of those who senses the reality of the spirit life but has rejected formal religion. I wish this were not so.

A fun read.

Discipleship Based Churches - A Short Review

 

I very much enjoyed this short book. I feel like I learned a good bit, too. Developing a coherent discipleship strategy still seems like a daunting process, however. This is mostly so because I have always been involved in relatively old, established churches. In these churches, programs and inward-focus have always been significant. I have never seen with my own eyes a church with a strategy like Wyrostek describes. That said, I see how beautiful this is and how it fits far better with the early church of Acts and Paul’s epistles than our paradigm today. No church under persecution or so incredibly outnumbered as the early church could ever afford to focus on the sports programs, affinity groups, and material wealth of the modern, American church. In fact, it is probably these extras which we have made central that so wear Christians out that church becomes a drudgery, a chore, and a bore. We need a change!

I especially want to grow in personal evangelism. I want to make disciples, not merely in the sense that I help disciple other Christians but in the sense that the Lord uses me to make new disciples! I need to plan and budget for this.

I see a great need for discipleship among church leaders. Both church staff and deacons generally fail to follow their own path of discipleship, which leads directly to many of the leadership problems we face in the church.

In the end, all problems faced by the church are discipleship problems! If the people of God were following Jesus, those problems would seem ludicrous!