Is Christian Martyrdom a Myth?

Carl Trueman reviews Candida Moss’ book, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom.

Her argument is simple: the myth of the persecution of Christians has fuelled a paranoid victim mentality on the political Right that imperils intelligent civil discourse. Ironically, as she makes this case, she herself engages in precisely the kind of myth making that she rightly decries. On page 252, she recounts her shock at hearing two students at Notre Dame expressing no sympathy for a nine-year old rape victim who had had an abortion. She was right to be shocked; but if her point is that the Christian mythology of persecution polarizes the world around and destroys civil discourse, then she herself here provides a good example of how alternative myths do much the same.

Mediterranean Grave, by William Doonan


“… And I’m really going to need for you to leave us now. Sitting at someone’s table without being invited is rude.”

“Let me tell you something,” I said, helping myself to her toast, “I’ve been called rude many times and I’ve never believed it. I’m a lovely man. I think when someone calls me rude it’s because they don’t want to talk to me. And the only reason someone wouldn’t want to talk with me is because they have something to hide.”

I’ve expressed the opinion here before that a lot of the best series detective characters are wish-fulfillment figures. Hard-boiled private eyes tend to have lives their male readers dream of having. I assume female detective heroes (which I generally don’t read) fulfill a similar function for women.

William Doonan’s Henry Grave, hero of Mediterranean Grave (sequel to Grave Passage, which I reviewed a couple days back), is a new kind of wish-fulfillment hero, in my experience. He’s pretty much the guy I’d love to be (but am sure I won’t be) when I get old. Older.

84-year-old Henry Grave works as an investigator for an organization of cruise ship owners. His professional technique is reminiscent of Peter Falk’s Columbo character on TV, playing the clueless bumbler who disarms suspects to the point where they get sloppy and make mistakes. Harry takes that game up a notch by presenting himself as a semi-senile, deaf, nearsighted old codger. This method allows him to have a very good time while doing his job, drinking heavily, eating about every five minutes, and flirting with every pretty girl he meets. And yet, when it comes to a showdown, Henry Graves is Shiva, the avenger without mercy.

In Mediterranean Grave, Henry finds himself aboard the cruising yacht Vesper, an unusually small and elderly ship catering to New Agers. The ship is anchored in the Greek archipelago when the story begins. An Egyptian policeman, on board to guard a priceless archaeological artifact, has been found murdered in his cabin. The artifact, an inscribed cup that gives the promise of being a Rosetta Stone for the heretofore undeciphered Minoan language, has disappeared.

Henry proceeds to investigate in his signature fashion, saying anything he darn well pleases and going anywhere he darn well likes, and when he gets in trouble either playing the age card or pulling rank. His shamelessness sometimes makes me laugh out loud, but his serious heart occasionally moves me deeply.

Cautions for adult themes (one male character who abandoned his wife for another woman is described as a “good man,” but I don’t look to Henry for moral wisdom). At $2.99 for a Kindle download, I’d say the Henry Grave mysteries are about as good an entertainment deal as any books you’ll find. After mine, of course.

You can't get there from here



Beautiful downtown Robbinsdale

It was a weekend of detours, of cancellations and adjustments. You might be able to do what you planned this past weekend, if you had the misfortune to be me, but you had to find a new approach.

The pattern for our days in this neck of the woods has been hot weather with vicious storms overnight. Rinse, repeat. Wherever you travel in the Twin Cities, you see branches on the ground. Small branches most everywhere, large branches here and there, and now and then a whole tree keeled over onto somebody’s home or car.

I myself didn’t suffer any damage I’m aware of. But I saw some.

On Saturday I took myself off to Culver’s, a fine hamburger establishment on which I’d decided to bestow my business that day. As I drove off I saw the beginnings of what would be a momentous event in the history of my town. The street one block over from me was abundant with rivers of water, and what looked like a fountain was bubbling up in the midst of it (probably, I assume, from a manhole cover). The little park alongside was filling up with brown runoff. Police were just then pulling up to cordon the street off.

When I got back from lunch the flooding was more extensive. I was temporarily the owner of property with a lake view, though it was a pretty dirty lake. Continue reading You can't get there from here

What Your Coffee Says About You

You’re fun, energetic, serious, and focused on what’s important. You may not have the world by the tail, but you’re going to look like you do, by gum.

Whoa! Another earthquake. They seem to come every morning about this time too. Did you feel it? It isn’t just me, is it? (via David C. Cook)

Nothing to Hide, by J. Mark Bertrand.


In the third installment in J. Mark Bertrand’s excellent crime series about Houston police detective Roland March, we find March examining the body of a man dumped on a basketball court. The body’s head is missing, and both hands have been skinned. March’s former enemy – now his friend and partner – Jerry Lorenz, thinks there might be some significance in the fact that one of the fleshless hands is arranged as if pointing. March jumps a ditch to investigate, falling and injuring his back. And there don’t seem to be any clues in that direction.
But it’s early yet.
Nothing to Hide takes March on a dangerous and tragic ride that reintroduces him to antagonists from his own past, and forces him to push the edge of the law in order to pursue the impartial justice he demands for every victim, and for which he’s willing to put his life and freedom on the line. An interesting sideline is that part of the plot anticipates the ATF’s disastrous “Fast and Furious” program, although the book was written before that scandal was made public.
Strong stuff. I salute Bethany House for publishing a series so far beyond the usual standard of Christian fiction, both in quality and in subject matter. The Christian elements are there, as an integral part of the story, but the purpose here is to tell stories about the truth, not to present a gospel tract to the reader.
The book works fine as a stand-alone, but there’s a definite story arc in connection with the previous novels in the series. I’m contemplating re-reading them all to get the sweep of the thing. Highly recommended, with cautions for disturbing content.

Bad Poetry Is Like A Flea

How? It makes me itch.

Ron Charles reviews the next Harper’s Magazine, which asks why all modern poetry is bad. Several poets are named. “Anne Carson may be Canadian, but that’s no defense; her verse ‘is so obscure, mannered, and private that one (this one, at least) cannot follow its windings.'” I wasn’t aware that being Canadian was a defense for anything, but perhaps in some literary or academic circles, someone from Canada is perceived as standing on a higher plane.

I believe Charles concludes that these complaints are not new, that contemporary poets are often criticized for pioneering obtuseness, and that some modern poets, who were not named in the Harper’s article, are quite good. S’up wit dat, as the poet might say.

Mommy, Why Is That Man Changing in a Phone Booth?

Superman, Save Our Tourism Revenue!Anthony Sacramone talks about the newest take on Superman. He likes it.

“Sitting in a church pew with a stained glass image of Christ in Gethsemane over his shoulder, Clark agonizes over his fate. And what does the minister say? “What does your gut tell you?” Right. A very American minister, he. No other otherworldly advice does he offer. I mean, Clark may be from Krypton, but he was raised by Kansans, and his earth Mom (Diane Lane) has that cross around her neck. SOME talk of another kind of savior must have reached earshot in his 30-plus years…

But the overall themes are strong, he says.

“Man of Steel brings home the message that Superman isn’t great because he has X-ray vision and flies like an eagle and can withstand bullets. He’s great because of the old-fashioned values he learned from his adoptive parents on a farm in Kansas. He’s our hero not because he’s strong but because he’s good.”

Break In, by Dick Francis

Reviewing a Dick Francis book seems almost a redundancy, unless you’re reviewing one of his misfires. Which is unfair, because the misfires are very rare. So I’ll go ahead and tell you about Break In, one of the master’s best.

Kit Fielding is a champion steeplechase jockey who rides for some prominent owners, including a European princess whose charming niece shows up to provide romantic interest. But there’s trouble in Kit’s family. His twin sister Holly – with whom he shares a moderate psychic link – has been rash enough to marry Bobby Allardeck, scion of a racing family with which the Fieldings have been feuding – sometimes to the point of bloodshed – for centuries. Bobby has been disinherited by his millionaire father, and Holly has been disowned by the grandfather who raised her and Kit. Now stories have started appearing in a London tabloid, reporting that Bobby’s horse training business is in financial trouble, and that his father has refused to help. Tradesmen are starting to demand payment, and the stories could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Kit begins to investigate the source of these stories, he comes under attack not only by mysterious thugs, but occasionally by Bobby himself, because old feuds die hard, and overcoming a lifetime’s social conditioning is no easy matter.

The plot is rather convoluted, but Francis’ prose and storytelling are like a fine race horse, perfectly coordinated and rippling with muscle under the skin. I enjoyed Break In very much, and recommend it. Cautions for pre-marital sex and relatively mild bad language.

The Girl Who Cried Wolf, by Robert Ferrigno

A lot of people have praised Robert Ferrigno’s Assassin books to me, but I’ve always resisted reading them. The books are (if you haven’t heard of them) set in a near future in which Islam has become dominant in the United States. Since I figure there’s a good chance this will actually happen in my lifetime, I see no reason to experience it sooner than necessary, even vicariously.

But when the non-Assassin book The Girl Who Cried Wolf (available as an e-book only) showed up for three bucks for Kindle, I thought I’d give it a chance. Maybe I’d be so impressed I’d be motivated to tackle Ferrigno’s magnum opus.

Alas, I don’t think that will happen. I find myself in a strange position here. I have no serious criticisms to make of the book. The writing is professional, the characters interesting, the plot full of suspense. And yet I didn’t enjoy it much, and was glad to be done with it.

The plot is simple on the surface. A group of eco-terrorists decide to kidnap attorney Remy Brandt, daughter of an investment tycoon. The plan calls for one of them to murder Remy’s boyfriend, a policeman named Mack Armitage, but he fails in that, only the first in a series of errors that will prove fatal in the end.

Reviews gave me the impression that this book would be lighter than it is, that there’d be a sort of “Ransom of Red Chief” quality to it. There’s some of that, but I never found it very amusing or satisfying. Mack is an adequate hero, but of course he can’t be allowed to be too heroic, because just rescuing Remy would be unfashionably patriarchal.

Author Ferrigno has a reputation as “the most un-PC author in America,” but I didn’t see much of that here. The eco-terrorists are depicted as being in the wrong, but most of them are well-meaning and merely the dupes of masterminds whose motives have nothing to do with Mother Earth. The vilest person in the story is someone every leftist will be happy to hate. So I didn’t see much here that was subversive of mainstream prejudices.

And when it comes down to it, I guess I just don’t like stories about hostages and prisoners. That’s purely a personal reaction, based on my own history. You may like The Girl Who Cried Wolf more than I did.

Vince Flynn dead at 47

Minnesota author Vince Flynn, famous for his Mitch Rapp novels, died today of prostate cancer in a St. Paul hospital. He passed away surrounded by relatives and friends who prayed the Rosary.

Flynn was supporting himself by bartending when he self-published his first novel, “Term Limits,” in 1997 after getting more than 60 rejection letters. After it became a local best-seller, Pocket Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint, signed him to a two-book deal — and “Term Limits” became a New York Times best-seller in paperback.

The St. Paul-based author also sold millions of books in the international market and averaged about a book a year, most of them focused on Rapp, a CIA counterterrorism operative. His 14th novel, “The Last Man,” was published last year.

R. I. P.