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I Just Read ‘The Great Good Thing’
When Ricochet member @andrewklavan posted about his new book called The Great Good Thing – A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ, I was curious. I was curious why he took a little flack from a few Jewish members of Ricochet when he posted about his new book, who didn’t feel he gave Judaism a fair shake. But that’s not why I ordered the book. As a Christian, I was born into the faith, but came to a more personal faith backward and sideways, sometimes kicking and screaming. I was curious to hear about another person’s journey of faith – was it worse than mine?
So I ordered it and threw it up on my bookshelf for another day. Published in 2016, I am three years late in picking it up, but not really. I read it at the perfect time. There are times in a person’s life when a book like this is profound and quite frankly, more appreciated, than other times. The recent deaths of people I love and thoughts about mortality and immortality flowing through my mind, rapidly changing world events, including challenges to people of faith, especially Christians and Jews, with the dramatic rise in antisemitism, religious persecution across the world, and the upcoming peace talks in Israel made it the right time.
This book is a story of a soul – we’re all born with one, and Andrew Klavan, an atheist at one time, then an agnostic, could not shake this truth. His awareness seemed to start at around eight years old. Then there was the abusive father, along with the distant mother. In the midst of great suffering, somehow his spirit was never extinguished. I am amazed at how some people can put in words what cannot be put in words. It’s like he turned himself inside out. Andrew Klavan found the words to hold his heart and soul out to the world, that others might find comfort. This book teaches how fragile children are, how innocent, and how parents especially, form their mental and emotional health and well-being.
I could not put it down. An excerpt:
The human heart is so steeped in self-deception that it can easily outrun our own lies. It can even use meticulous honesty as a form of dishonesty, a way of saying to God, “Look how honest I am “. So I let it go – I let it all go. I swung wide the gates to the sorry junkyard of my soul and let God have a good look at the whole rubble-strewn wreck of it.
Another:
An Ultimate Moral Good cannot just be an idea. It must be, in effect, a personality with consciousness and free will. Happy and sad events, from birth to death, just happen, and we ascribe moral qualities to them as they suit us or don’t. We have to choose. Either there is no God and no morality whatsoever, or there is morality and God is real. I couldn’t quite bring myself to accept the existence of God. But I knew the road to hell when I saw it and I chose to go home by another way.
What does love have to do with his experience, marriage, seeing a birth, being on death’s door, suffering mental anguish beyond description, addiction, anger, forgiveness, miracles, poverty, success, rejection, fear, depression and ultimately peace, have to do with it? Read the book. It doesn’t matter where you are in life, how old, what faith or none, how successful or barely making it – this book has something for wherever you find yourself in life. It will give you hope if nothing else. There is no other reason to write it. I found it to be a gift. It’s a story of the human spirit – and in it, you will discover a better understanding of yourself and your place in this world.
Thank you, Mr. Klavan, for sharing your amazing story.
Published in General
There’s a great story about a Jew who comes to a rabbbi and says he does not believe in G-d. “Have you read the Bible?” the rabbi asks. “I’m familiar with it” is the response. “Have you learned Mishna (basic primer of Jewish law)?” “A little” is the answer. “Have you learned Talmud (elaboration of the Mishna)? the rabbi finally asks. “Not really” is the response. “When you have mastered the Bible, the Mishna, and the Talmud,” the rabbi instructs, “only then you will have a right to call yourself a non-believer.”
I haven’t read the Koran. But I am not a believer in Islam. I have not read the Book of Mormon. Yet I am not a believer in Mormonism.
It’s sort of like if I were to ask my wife if she is a fan of the Rolling Stones. She would say, “No.” If I were to say, “Well, you have not listened to every one of the songs recorded by the Rolling Stones?” she would say I am being unreasonable and she would be correct.
Just because someone says, “This book is the word of God,” does not make it the word of God.
One need not read every book ever written to think that books are written by human beings, not God.
Why?
Ummm…words do have inherent meaning but that meaning can encompass a broad semantic field. If they did not, our writing these symbols here would be pointless.
The works/acts divide is important to be sure, but if your professed belief does not result in action and in change of your heart to conform more to the loving, just and merciful character of God – well, then, as Jesus said “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord!’ and not do as I say?” Faith and action must go together, though, of course, the real question is where the heart is.
He said on the Internet.
I am a novice with philosophy, but that first part sounds a bit Derrida-ish, right?
That last part could be from the mouth of James who was an indisputable Jew as well as a follower of Christ and pillar of the early church. :) (“Faith without works is dead.”)
While the Jews who were Christians invited the Gentiles into the love that is the heart of the whole business, they all remained Jews who went to Temple and engaged with the Torah. In my mind, they did not discard Judaism. They expanded upon it as chronicled in Acts.
Because it’s a slippery slope. If you exclude one law, you may soon exclude another and then another until you have stopped keeping any of them.
Still, it is possible to talk about essential Jewish living as encompassing 5 major areas of life:
That is the Christian belief. They also dropped a lot of Jewish practices. Some say those decisions were ways of distinguishing Christians from Jews. Examples would be the laws of kashrut (kosher).
So that if Jesus does come back, he will only eat in the homes of Orthodox Jews.
There is to this day considerable debate on how much of the ritual law- especially dietary law- is still applicable. The Christian and Messianic Jewish communities with which I am in contact or involved as a member have individual members and households that keep kashrut. The biggest dietary issue for early Christians though was not eating food that had been sacrificed to pagan idols, which is still an issue for some Christians in China, India and Japan.
I get it, but a lot of Jews aren’t kosher and still Jews, which circles me back to the can of worms that is the question of “Jewishness,” but you have already given me a lot to think about there and a book! :)
Not being cheeky here, but I don’t know nearly as much as I should about Judaism. If one does not believe Jesus is the Messiah, when the Messiah comes, will that Messiah only be the king of the Jewish people?
Interesting.
My opening comment about words not having inherent meaning was casual, not part of what I was saying.
But since I think you misunderstood that not-relevant comment, I will explain it while I’m thinking about it. I recognize that I’m sidetracking an important conversation, and will have to be careful how far I take it.
I meant something different by “inherent”. This may make it clear how I was using the word.
I agree. If “being Jewish” is all about the ethnicity it’s a waste of too much suffering and the stigma against marrying non-Jews would be racist. We’re on a mission from G-d.
I agree. You put this concisely and well, Susan.
These people who say that: do you mean non-Christians?