Reading between the lines

Salvos Online continues a new weekly column – Three Books. Today’s guest bookworm is Andrea Redford, who is a journalist with The Salvation Army Kidzone team.

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Besides the gospels and Psalms, which is your favourite book in the Bible and why?

Job. It’s famous for its storyline of unimaginable suffering and grief, but Job is my favourite read in the Bible for a few other reasons. There’s so much to learn from the complex portrayal of friendship, and Job’s meditation on wisdom (chapter 28) is worth a read all on its own.

What really makes Job special for me, though, is its depiction of an up-close and personal God who is not afraid to muck through the ‘uglier’ side of our emotions and thoughts with us.

Throughout the story, God and Job go toe-to-toe. Job tells God exactly what he’s feeling and thinking. He doesn’t hold back how angry he is and how unfair he thinks he’s been treated. And God is up for all of it. Every last bit.

Reading Job has taught me that approaching God doesn’t require a well-thought-out, three-point prayer with a considered opening and a neat closing (not that God minds those either). Yet Job’s forthrightness and honesty is rewarded with such a direct and transformational encounter with God that he’s left saying, “I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes” (chapter 42, verse five NLT).

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Besides the Bible, what is a Christian book that has strongly influenced your faith?

Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church by Philip Yancey had a huge impact on me in my early 20s. In fact, I think it’s high time for a re-read.

The book is Yancey’s story of “searching for a faith that works”, along with the stories of 13 “unlikely mentors” whose remarkable lives shaped his own spiritual journey. Some of these Yancey interviews himself (Annie Dillard and Dr Paul Brand), while others he encounters through their own writing (G.K. Chesterton, Shusaku Endo, Leo Tolstoy).

Soul Survivor is like one good friend introducing you to many more. The main reason it remains high on my list of favourite books after 20 years is because it was here that Yancey introduced me to Henri Nouwen and Frederick Buechner (both of whom he interviews). I’d never heard of either writer before reading Soul Survivor, but I’ve since gone on to read all their books, and my faith has never been the same.

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What is a secular book that has revealed to you a Christian message or theme?

I’m going to cheat a little here and name a whole series, rather than just one book:  the Armand Gamache series by Canadian author Louise Penny (also sometimes called The Three Pines series).

These are mystery/detective novels mostly set in a tiny Canadian village and centring around Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec.

Each instalment is a great read, but it’s very much a series where you come for the mystery but stay for the characters. These are the books I’ve recommended most to family and friends and haven’t (yet!) heard a bad word.

Themes of faith and spirituality don’t dominate the series, but they’re there. Wisdom is sprinkled throughout the pages, often taking the form of protagonist Gamache’s dialogue. Gamache wrestles with questions of faith and doubt, and good versus evil.

Penny shines a light on the best and worst of humanity and, for me, her observations on human nature are often worth underlining (or a second, third or fourth read, at the very least).

The series is rich in themes of community, sacrifice, loyalty, forgiveness, redemption, brokenness and healing and offers readers a lot more than simply discovering whodunnit.