Authors

Ravi Zacharias Stained His Name Forever

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I hate this so much.

After news broke of women accusing the late apologist Ravi Zacharias of sexual and spiritual abuse, the ministry he founded, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, hired an team to investigate the claims. They released the report this week. It has details I don’t want to think about or repeat here.

But people have been able to talk about this for a few months now with some humble, biblical reflection. Artist and author Jackie Hill Perry notes that “orthodox teaching” is not “proof of righteous living.” Demons could teach us the Bible accurately and King David understood the prophet Nathan’s parable before recognizing himself in it.

https://twitter.com/JackieHillPerry/status/1360217209872785410

This is true. Anyone who was inspired by the Bible they heard in Zacharias’s messages or was brought to faith in connection to them suffers no loss in the life they now have. But when you’re able to hear how a man spiritually abused his victims, how they prayed beforehand, how some didn’t come forward because who would believe them, then you can easily start to wonder if the truth you hear from such a man is, in fact, true. Maybe it’s off somehow. Maybe the conviction you should doubt is not your own, but his.

Joe Carter, who summarized the details I linked to above, draws it down to this. “I believe it was because of a dangerous mix of inflated entitlement, unwarranted secrecy, and cheap grace.”

On entitlement, he says, “They begin to think the sacrifices they make for the job should be offset by making allowances for their behavior—including sinful behavior—because they are ‘Great Men.’ They begin to develop a sense that their great achievements for the kingdom entitles them to the spoils that are due all such Great Men.

“It is this Great Man mentality, not celebrity (which many disgraced leaders don’t have), that tends to lead to their downfall.”

Let me add more to this by bringing in Rachael Denhollander’s tweets. You should remember her name as one of many victims in large abuse scandal in U.S. gymnastics. She has become a voice against the abuses of powerful people in the subsequent years.

Speaking to Christian leaders who are decrying Zacharias this week, she says their voices were needed in 2017 when the first accusation came forward. That’s when it would have cost something to call for accountability.

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Jeremiah in winter

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The Prophet Jeremiah, by Leonard Gaultier. This man never lived in Minnesota in winter.

Welcome to winter. Not only is it cold up here in wind chill country, but I understand much of the nation is enjoying the opportunity to bask in the same hibernal pleasures we Minnesotans get to savor every winter.

Needless to say, I hate it, with a fiery passion which, though inadequate to warm the house, is nonetheless remorseless. One of the nice things about being retired is that there are sometimes days – like this one – when there is no mortal reason to leave the house at all. Except I had to take the garbage out. But I managed it without damage, in spite of some really icy spots on my driveway (have I mentioned my driveway slopes?).

I figure this is the worst part of winter, unless we get a major snowstorm later and the power goes out. And that thought puts me in a winter mood.

I’ve been trying to think of subjects to write about for the American Spectator Online. I’ve got several ideas. But the problem is, I don’t want to write – and nobody wants to read – an article as winter-bleak as my thoughts around now.

I remember reading a book about Thomas Jefferson when I was a kid. It was above my reading level, but one thing in there stuck with me – Jefferson’s belief about freedom of speech. The faith that if everybody gets their say, the truth will naturally win out because it’s stronger than lies. The answer to bad speech is good speech.

But when I appeal to that principle today, nobody even knows what I’m talking about. The Left has not only renounced that faith, they pretend they never affirmed it at all.

Somebody said, a while back, that the future had turned out not to be Orwell’s, but Huxley’s.

But it appears now that the future came in stages. Huxley first, immediately followed by Orwell.

So all I can think of to say, when I talk about current events, is something along the lines of Jeremiah.

At this point there’s always somebody to say, “Don’t you have faith in Christ? Don’t you believe that God will take care of us?”

Sure, just the way He took care of Jeremiah. Who was carried off against his will into exile, and then murdered by his countrymen.

When we say that God will take care of us, that does not necessarily rule out martyrdom.

Could be a reeducation camp, of course. Which would probably get awful cold here in Minnesota.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Serpentine,’ by Jonathan Kellerman

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Below all that, the Valley was a vast circuit board, brown and white and beige, with dots of coral red where tile roofs sprouted like spores.

Brand new Alex Delaware novels are not cheap, but I can never resist buying them as soon as they’re available for Kindle. Because they’re that good. The premise (civilian psychologist assists police detective in solving crimes) has gotten a little threadbare over the years, but the storytelling has not diminished.

In Serpentine, Detective Milo Sturgis (the least gay homosexual in literature) asks Alex to consult on a case that’s been dumped in his lap by the powers that be, something he deeply resents. A city council member has pressured Milo’s boss to “strongly suggest” that he reopen a very cold case. It involves the death of a woman whose charred body was found in a burned-out Cadillac on Mulholland Drive back in the 1980s. A bullet in the body indicated it was actually a murder, but the case was never solved. The woman’s daughter is now a very wealthy woman, and she’d like to learn why her mother died.

Milo is prepared to hate Ellie Barker, the rich daughter, but she turns out to be an extremely nice person, very apologetic about asking for special attention, but hungry to learn about her origins. The evidence itself is suspiciously thin – it’s almost as if the original detectives, and several who picked it up cold over the years, did no work at all. All Ellie has of her mother’s things are one old photograph and a serpentine necklace.

Working from almost no evidence, the team spreads its net wide, employing shoe-leather investigation and a fair amount of psychological dead reckoning. A lot of lies are revealed, and gradually a story of remarkable evil comes to light.

What I particularly liked about Serpentine was that, unlike most books labeled “psychological thriller” these days, it actually lived up to its advertising. Most “psychological thrillers” nowadays devolve into obligatory slasher stuff. There’s violence in Serpentine, but the real climax is what it should be – a psychological shocker. An extremely good one.

Cautions for the usual – depraved goings on, some rough language. This book takes us a little further into the lives of homosexuals than I enjoy, but, as in all Kellerman’s books, there are delightful moments of anti-PC sensibility. Highly recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Smoke Screen,’ by Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger

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I see I forgot to review the second book in Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger’s new detective/journalist mystery series, starring Oslo police inspector Alexander Blix and writer Emma Ramm.

Smoke Screen opens tragically, with a bang, as a bomb goes off during Oslo’s New Year’s Eve celebration. Emma, who was left with a phobic fear of “countdowns” due to the horrific case she just finished, has gone to Oslo harbor for the midnight fireworks, just to face the big countdown involved. A tragic choice – her new boyfriend, who had come down to be with her, is killed in the explosion.

Another victim of that bombing is a woman named Patricia Semplass, who has been sought by the police for ten years, as a suspect in the kidnapping of her own daughter. Meanwhile, her husband, in prison for killing a man involved in the kidnapping, has received a photograph of a young girl in the mail. He is convinced it’s his daughter, who hasn’t been seen since the kidnapping.

Blix and Emma both get caught up in an investigation that just seems to grow more convoluted and contradictory as it goes. In the end, both their lives will be endangered, and a tragic choice will be made by the least likely person.

Smoke Screen wasn’t bad. I still don’t like this series as well as Horst’s Wisting books, but there were genuine surprises, and the attitude here remains more positive than in your general run of Scandinavian Noirs, so I give it a thumbs up.

Cautions for what you’d expect.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘My Anecdotal Life,’ by Carl Reiner

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I’ve always had a mild fascination with Hollywood and Hollywood stories. A deal showed up on Carl Reiner’s memoir, My Anecdotal Life, so I picked it up. It was an amusing book, though it won’t mean as much to younger people as it does to Boomers like me.

The son of an immigrant Jewish watchmaker, Carl Reiner took acting lessons at his brother’s suggestion, and went on to enjoy a long and successful career as a comedian, writer, and producer. He’s best known for playing second banana to Syd Caesar on Your Show of Shows, being Mel Brooks’s straight man in the 2,000 Year Old Man routines, and creating and producing the Dick Van Dyke Show. He also did Broadway plays and movies (who knew he wrote a Broadway comedy pronounced the funniest thing he ever saw by no less an authority than Grouch Marx, which died thanks to a noncommittal Times review?).

According to Reiner himself, he had a stock of show biz stories he used to tell his friends, and they encouraged him to put them in a book, and this is it. It’s not presented in chronological order (which I consider a flaw), but they’re pretty good stories, especially in the cases where you know who the participants are.

My Anecdotal Life does fail in one of the pleasures most of us look for in show business stories – it’s short on dirt. We all know today what we all suspected from the beginning, that Hollywood is a nest of vipers that even regular vipers give a wide berth. But you’d never know it from this book. Except in the cases of a couple critics, Reiner doesn’t say anything at all if he can’t say something nice. He comes off as a pretty nice guy himself.

The writing was… okay. I would have expected a funny man to be more deft with words, but I suppose a lot of it was in the presentation in the original telling.

I was a little worried about politics, as Reiner was a well-known liberal. That element was pretty scarce until the very end, where he throws in a couple chapters related to his involvement with the anti-war movement in the Vietnam years, plus a touching anecdote about meeting Pres. Clinton. But it wasn’t too bad.

Not a bad book. Minimal rough language. The book shows its age in including the occasional sentiment that wouldn’t pass muster with the politically correct crowd today, especially regarding men and women.

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IndiWire on ‘Atlantic Crossing’

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I think it’s fair for you to assume that you’re going to read a lot here about the Atlantic Crossing miniseries (coming to PBS Masterpiece beginning April 4), one of my proudest projects as a translator.

IndieWire has an article today:

“I don’t think anybody knew how long lockdowns were going to happen,” [Executive Producer Susanne] Simpson said. “Atlantic Crossing” was something she’d known about for six months prior to the outbreak, but she’d never pursued it because it was a Norwegian production. “Once I was able to see the show it wasn’t a very hard decision,” she said. “Atlantic Crossing” tells the story of the relationship between Crown Princess Marta (Sofia Helin) of Sweden and Norway and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Kyle MacLachlan).

For some reason, my indespensible contibutions as a translator are not mentioned in the article, but it does talk about the writers, Alexander Eik and Linda May Kallestein. Linda May, I think it’s OK to tell you, is my boss. Aside from her fine screen writing, she is a top Norwegian-to-English script translator, and the person who got me into the business.

Atlantic Crossing. Watch for it.

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‘Atlantic Crossing’ timetable

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=k07hM5dn1ws

You probably don’t know about this because I’ve been so discreet on the subject, but I did a whole lot of translation on the Norwegian miniseries, Atlantic Crossing (teaser above). It’s also possible I may have mentioned that it will be broadcast for the US on PBS Masterpiece this spring.

I promised to let you know when we learned the actual broadcast date. The premiere date has been revealed at last — Sunday, April 4, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, 8:00 Central (all the rest of you are expected to do math). The official announcement is here.

Today was an eventful one by the standards of my life. I had my annual appointment with the tax preparer. It’s a new preparer this year. My old preparer died. A couple days ago. She wasn’t a robust person, but still, a shocker. (Not Covid)

I also had to do some actual physical work. It snowed overnight, and my neighbor who usually takes care of snowblowing, couldn’t, because the his snowblower broke down. And, oh yes, he has a concussion.

I am surrounded by devastation.

I was able to tell the ladies at the tax place about Atlantic Crossing, though. I doubt it makes up for a death on staff, but it was the best I could do. Aside from paying their exorbitant fee.

I don’t like February much. Maybe April will be better.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Death Deserved,’ by Jorn Lier HOrst and Thomas Enger

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As I never tire of telling you, I’m not a huge fan of Scandinavian Noir as a literary genre. My samplings indicate that most such books ought to be classed as depressants and dispensed only with a doctor’s prescription. However, I make an exception for Jørn Lier Horst’s William Wisting novels. (I first discovered Wisting, as I also never tire of telling you, while helping to translate the Wisting TV series, now available on the Sundance Channel).

It’s been a while since a new Wisting book has been released in English, though. But I was happy to discover that author Horst has teamed up with another Norwegian mystery author, Thomas Enger, to produce a new police series, about an Oslo detective named Alexander Blix. The first book in the series is Death Deserved.

Alexander Blix is a top-notch detective, but somewhat the worse for wear. Years ago he was involved in a shooting that’s still studied at the police academy. He was exonerated, but his career has always been under a shadow. His former partner (and former friend) is now his boss.

When a legendary female long-distance runner disappears from her home, almost the only clue left behind is a race number (1) taped to the TV. Since the woman had recently published a memoir entitled, Always Number One, that number seems to have something to do with the criminal’s motives.

Over the next few days famous people start disappearing or being murdered all around the city, each of them associated with a particular number. It looks like somebody is doing a macabre countdown.

The first person on the original crime scene was a young celebrity reporter, Emma Ramm. Suddenly she’s covering her very first hard news story – and Blix can’t resist helping her out a little. He has a secret reason for this, which the reader will learn in time.

Meanwhile, Blix is dealing with having a celebrity in his own family. His daughter, of whom he has seen little since her mother left him, is currently a contestant on a big Norwegian reality show along the lines of Big Brother. And gradually he begins to suspect that the celebrity-hunting murderer may have his eye on whoever wins that show.

I liked Death Deserved, though not as much as the Wisting books. It suffered (in my opinion) from the natural defects of the criminal mastermind story – this sort of thing never happens in the real world, and gets pretty implausible as the plot works itself out.

But the final showdown was exciting and well crafted, with a certain emotional resonance that pleased me.

There’s one excursion into the world of big evangelicalism – a sequence involving a venal celebrity pastor. Not surprisingly, they don’t get the jargon right – but the man’s a plain grifter, so I suppose it doesn’t matter much. I was pleased that the translator, Anne Bruce, translated “prest” as “pastor” rather than “priest,” which is my preferred interpretation. In fact, the translation as a whole earned my coveted admiration.

I also note, with appreciation, that the translator got a thank you in the Acknowledgements (which are otherwise too long and too cute).

Not a bad book. I’ll be reading the next.

Reviews

Netflix film review: ‘The Dig’

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A very recent addition to the Netflix film lineup is the fact-based film, The Dig, about the excavation of the Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon ship burial beginning in 1939. This was, needless to say, of considerable interest to me. And it’s a pretty fair movie.

Ralph Fiennes plays Basil Brown, a self-taught archaeological excavator who is hired by the widowed Mrs. Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) to do a dig of a grave mound on her property. The nearby Ipswich Museum tries to lure Brown away to excavate some Roman ruins, but he stays on the Sutton Hoo dig, convinced that it might be Anglo-Saxon rather than Viking, a significant rarity. When Brown uncovers the distinct traces of a ship burial, the site suddenly becomes an archaeological sensation. Noted British Museum archaeologist Charles Phillips (Ken Stott) stomps in to take control, causing Brown to withdraw in offense for a time. He is drawn back, however, by Edith’s young son Robert (Archie Barnes), who sees him as a father figure. Soon progress on the dig turns into a race against time, as war approaches and all non-essential public works will have to be shut down.

The film is beautifully filmed and emotionally touching. The sense of impending death hangs over all, the idea of robbing a grave offering counterpoint to portents of the bloodbath that’s approaching for the whole country. Edith herself suffers from heart disease, and knows she hasn’t long to live (she’s portrayed as a woman in her 30s in the film, though the real Edith Pretty was in her 50s. Nicole Kidman was originally slated for the role).

Contemporary glosses are obligatory of course, especially in the case of female archaeologist Peggy Piggott (Lily James), who is portrayed, with an eye to the feminists, as a sort of insecure nerd-babe in a loveless marriage, hired solely because she’s light in weight and less likely to crush artifacts. In fact (according to Wikipedia), she was an experienced and accomplished team member. A fictional adulterous romance is invented for her (with Edith’s fictional brother Rory, played by Johnny Flynn).

The ending is slightly anticlimactic, and melancholy. It saddened me that, even in a portrayal of a more Christian England, no reference is made to Christian hope in the many conversations about death and the afterlife. The lesson of the film seems to be that we’re all part of a great chain of lives stretching back into infinity, and forward, who knows how far? No doubt that’s comforting to some people.

Good movie, and sometimes educational, though I wish they’d told us more about the Anglo-Saxons, their culture, and the artifacts. Still, recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Prodigal Son,’ by Gregg Hurwitz

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“That’s the point of dating,” she said. “To, like, get to know someone.”

“The guy’s a communications major—ironic given his lack of verbal acuity—and he barely maintains a two-point oh. Been on academic probation twice. And he had a jaywalking ticket—”

“Uh, you just butchered six dudes in an impound lot.”

“Context is everything.”

Imagine you finished reading a James Bond novel, and felt you’d been made a wiser and better person.

That’s the effect (at least for this reader) of reading Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X series of thrillers. It’s a pretty neat trick, one any author ought to admire.

As you may recall, our hero, Evan Smoak, has lived three lives so far. First he was an orphan in a group home, abandoned and hopeless. Then he was recruited into the government’s super-top-secret Orphan program, becoming a deadly covert assassin. Then, after extricating himself from that life, he became The Nowhere Man, living in a luxury condo in LA, answering calls for help from the desperate, saving them if he can. But as Prodigal Son begins, he’s transitioned to yet another new life. Pardoned through a special deal with no less a personage than the president of the United States, he has given up his vigilante career, and he finds himself untethered in the cosmos. He is a physically fit minimalist with OCD. His human contacts are few. There’s Joey, a 16-year-old girl he rescued from the Orphan project, who does computer hacking for him and has become a sort of surrogate daughter. There’s his neighbor Mia, the single mother of a boy who desperately wants a father figure. There’s real chemistry with Mia, but she works for the DA’s office, and has figured out she doesn’t want to know too much about his life.

Then Evan gets a call over his secure phone, from a woman who claims to be his mother. He refuses to believe it at first, but finally he goes to meet her in Buenos Aires. She wants him to save the life of a man named Andrew Duran, a man who owes money to loan sharks and is working at a city impound lot, trying to make his child support payments. Evan can’t figure out why she cares about this guy, but it’s something he can do for his mother. Of course, that means breaking his deal with the president. And it will put him in the sights of a lethal brother-sister assassin team and the richest man in the world, who has lots of high-tech military-industrial-complex toys.

The stakes keep rising, the twists and turns and setbacks escalate to impossible levels. And yet, the really compelling thing about Prodigal Son is Evan’s personal journey. Meeting his mother after all these years sets him to contemplating what it means to be human, realizing that he has to find some way to connect with humanity. And step by step, he starts doing just that. It’s touching and inspiring – and sometimes funny.

Loved this book, in spite of the slightly preposterous plot (standard in the series) and the cliff-hanger ending (to be fair, all the plot threads had been tied up, so this was more of a cliff appendix). Highly recommended. Cautions for language and violence.