Mary Slessor; A Life on the Altar for God by Bruce McLennan; published by Christian Focus Publications 2014, available from John Ritchie Ltd; 271 pages. Price £8.99 (9781781915189)
The publication of this fitting reminder of a remarkable woman is timely, with the recent unveiling of a new memorial in Dundee on the centenary of her death. Such public memorials usually highlight humanitarian and social work, and Mary Slessor's was far reaching and extensive. We recognise just how much primitive societies benefited from missionaries arriving in their countries, but the motivating spiritual and evangelical aspects of such work are even more lasting.
This book balances all these aspects of Mary Slessor's life and work. It is in two approximately equal parts: descriptive narrative and background analysis, along with some interesting photographs. The author's specialism in the ecclesiastical history of Northeast Scotland lends weight to the analysis in particular. The style is fluent and easy to read, also scholarly and well referenced from original sources. Some quotes taken from her writings and the margin of her Bible are priceless, e.g., sailing from Liverpool, "Scores of casks [of spirits] and only one missionary!"; in Calabar, "I have lain down at night knowing that not a sober man and hardly a sober woman was within miles of me."
Her early years in the Cowgate slums of Dundee, and the working conditions she and her mother experienced in its jute and cotton mills are brought to life – ideal preparation for the unhealthy and violent Calabar to which she would go? Her conversion at the Wishart Memorial Church, her deepening interest in missions work, David Livingstone's influence, as well as the reluctance of some to encourage her, all make for interesting reading.
Calabar was appalling, not for nothing called the white man's grave. But courage and determination, along with unwavering trust in God never left her. "Had I not felt my Saviour close beside me I would have lost my reason," she wrote. Missionaries from Jamaica had begun work for God in that part of Nigeria. Mary built on this, until God's Word was being taught widely, degrading practices were being outlawed, arrogant and violent native chiefs were submitting to her advice and sometimes her authority – and that in a society where women were despised and human life was cheap.
Books about Mary Slessor have been in print for a long time, some maybe on our shelves from Sunday School prizegivings? This one is more than an update and a refresher. Its analysis of 19th century Scotland, especially the decline in its spiritual life, the effect of urbanisation on evangelism, and apathy to missions, make the book very relevant to today's situation which is much worse. It is more than interesting. It is challenging.
-RC
Why Are You Here? by John Blanchard; published by EP Books; 281 pages. Price £9.99. Available from John Ritchie Ltd. (9781783970681)
John Blanchard is an apologist, whose publications have reached millions in the English-speaking world and beyond. The appetite for his works can be partly explained by the clarity of his writing: he deals with complicated arguments set out, often aggressively, by opponents determined to destroy the very foundations of Christianity. His careful reasoning in the face of such aggression is untainted by personal attacks.
The 862 notes listing his sources are testimony to the thoroughness of his research. Certainly, approximately half of those sources are from the Bible, the remainder from an impressive list of material which includes both the scholarly and the popular. He includes a range of newspapers, magazines, a few songs, films, J K Rowling's Harry Potter, and authors spanning the Greek philosopher Plato, Charles Darwin, the 17/18th century mathematician Gottfried Leibnitz, and a 20th century mathematician Jacob Bronowski, as well as Barbara Cartland. Not surprisingly, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and John Lennox are also cited. Blanchard weighs carefully each quotation he makes whether or not it opposes "the idea that over millions of years we evolved by a process of unguided, unplanned evolution, beginning when the first spark of life mysteriously appeared in non-living chemicals floating around in some kind of primordial 'soup'".
In the latter chapters of Why Are You Here? the writer's focus is on the Saviour - His incarnation, His life, death and resurrection, with clear testimony given to the Lord's return to earth. It is in the light of those chapters that he answers the question posed in the tile of the book. Why Are You Here? demands much of the reader, but it does not leave him or her without reward.
-TW
