Book Review - Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy, Alex Mar Penguin Press (2023)

Let me quote the inside of the book jacket to introduce you to this story:

"On a spring afternoon in 1985 in Gary, Indiana, a fifteen-year-old girl kills an elderly woman in a violent home invasion. In a city with a history of racial tensions and white flight, the girl, Paula Cooper, is Black, and her victim, Ruth Pelke, is white and a beloved Bible teacher. The press swoops in.

When Paula is sentenced to death, no one decries the impending execution of a tenth grader. But the tide begins to shift when the victim's grandson Bill forgives the girl, against the wishes of his family, and campaigns to spare her life." 

As that introduction conveys, this is a compelling story in so many ways. There are twists and turns featuring side stories that themselves deserve their own novel. 

Full disclosure - I became aware of this book after the author called me as she was doing research. I am not quoted nor did I provide anything more than background information during our conversation, that if memory serves lasted between a half hour and an hour.

The reason Ms. Mar contacted me was due to my role as a Region denominational leader with The Brethren Church. And the victim, Ruth Pelke, grew up in one of our Brethren churches in the Wabash/Peru area (Center Chapel). The book incorrectly ascribes the church as belonging to our sister denomination, Church of the Brethren - but that is a common mistake. The book does accurately describe our foundational values of peacemaking, forgiveness, and desire to imitate Christ. These values became the driving force behind Bill Pelke's advocacy campaign on behalf of his grandmother's murderer.

The story can be summarized in straightforward ways like in the quote above. But Mar does an excellent job highlighting all of the complicated factors that contributed to this tragedy as well as the myriad of people and issues that that pulled it towards redemption. 

Be prepared though, this is a real life story and does not have a convenient fairy-tale ending. 

It is hard to give a concise review of this book because of its complexity. This is a fascinating story that features religion, politics, capital punishment debates, media hysteria, family trauma, and the prison industrial complex. 

Kudos to Alex Mar for her intrepid research and her gracious perspective in retelling this story. She confronts the good, bad, and ugly parts of this case with curiosity, honesty, and integrity. Extra credit from me for her end of book "A Note on Sources" that describes her own process and how she made certain decisions in approaching this project. Overall, she connects dots of various parts of this world in ways that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It is an easy read and a book that in so many ways can be summarized by the simple label of "compelling". I highly recommend anyone to purchase and read this book. You will walk away from it challenged and changed.

It will stand as one of the favorite books I have ever read because it is so expertly written and because it is such a profound look at how hard it is to actually apply Jesus' call to forgiveness:

"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." - Matt. 18:22

Book Review - Elisabeth Elliot: A Life, Lucy S.R. Austen Crossway (2023)

I didn't intentionally take a hiatus from the blog but after a 2.5 month break, we're back!

Last year, I made a personal commitment to read more books. I easily let my free time get preoccupied with web browsing, online games, and endless podcasts. Those things are fine, but it certainly feels more productive when you can give yourself over to starting and finishing a book. 

I want to kick off this little series with the longest book I read, Lucy Austen's new biography on Elisabeth Elliot. It tops out at 609 pages when all footnotes and bibliographies are included. Elliot was an evangelical figure I knew about to an extent. Her life is famous for being a missionary widow at age 29, with 76% of American adults reading her story in Life magazine. Yet as this book recounts, her life encompassed so much more than that one tragedy. 

Austen presents a phenomenal work detailing Elliot's life. This bio is impressively researched, citing her personal journals and letters. The author conducted copious amounts of personal interviews with Elliot's close family and friends. It's clear this work is the product of years, if not a decade or more of hard work. My highest respect to Austen for the blood, sweat, and tears she put into creating this comprehensive account of an individual who has been a spiritual hero to so many.

The book itself is broken down into three main parts - Part 1: 1926-1952, Part 2: 1952-1963, Part 3: 1963-2015. Flows chronologically, Part 1 deals with her early life up to her departure for Ecuador. Part 2 covers her time as a missionary in Ecuador, and Part 3 describes her life and career back in the States.

Beyond the well-known aspects of her life, I enjoyed learning quite a bit of interesting features about her, including:

• Their actual missions efforts to the Auca, more accurately known as "Waorani". The fairytale version I thought I knew was much different than the actual evangelistic efforts to the tribe after the martyrdom of the young men. This biography peels away the sugar-coated veneer of cross-cultural ministry that sometimes gets promoted. It's hard, real, and complicated.
• Her two other marriages are featured in great detail. The ups and downs of life didn't stop in Ecuador. Really I found the rest of her life post-missionary intriguing as she sought to balance God's call and her sudden world-wide fame.
• Because of the aforementioned record of personal journals and diaries, Austen was able to track her personal development beyond just her published writings. While always one to adamantly support her convictions, it is clear her views on a variety of topics changed and evolved over the years.

I walk away from this book with a clear impression of three things from Elliot's life. Her personality, her theological astuteness, and her service-oriented nature are all clear marks of her legacy.

Austen is able to paint a pretty well-rounded picture of Elisabeth's personality here. I probably connect most with her self-critical features because of my own tendencies in that way. She would leave the impression with others as self-assured, but it is clear from all of her writings that she was very self-aware and introspective. That could often lead to negative self-criticism but also caused her to seek to be a voracious learner and deep thinker.

Growing up in the context that she did, there were certainly less entertainment distractions than present day. Still I come away from this impressed by her theological astuteness. "Avid reader" hardly does it justice but the list of works this book recounts that she read is astounding. Her thirst for God's Word is inspiring and convicting. And her never-ending quest to ascertain God's wisdom and will comes through clearly as well.

Finally, as exemplified in her missions work, she was consistently service-oriented. She did not hesitate to lend a hand to causes and opportunities she was in line with. There certainly seem to be seasons of her life where she was over-committed to her speaking engagements and conferences. But her impact for God's Kingdom over her 89 years was remarkable.

Austen's book has an epilogue as it wraps up. And I'll let her words summarize my own conclusion:

"For Elisabeth Elliot, the foundation of life was trust in the love of God. Not trust that she would live...not trust that things would go well, but trust in who God is. If the great hope of her faith is true, then in the end, the rings spreading out across the surface of the pond, the air displaced by the stone as it flew, the stone itself, are all held in the heart of God, where mercy and justice are never in contradiction, and all things in heaven and earth will finally be made whole."