Biography,  Christianity

Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians

Let’s get the embarrassing part out of the way first: yes, I read the large-print, abridged version of this book. It wasn’t my first choice. I’d put the original version on my Christmas list, but when I unwrapped it in my parents’ living room it was this one. I am still a little mystified, but I’ve finally gotten over the humiliation and read it.

Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians presents short, several-page biographies of well-known (for the most part) Christians. (Check them out in the table of contents here.) I learned of the book through Dallas Willard’s recommendation in Knowing Christ Today. The unabridged edition is almost twice the length of what I read and must contain longer and more detailed chapters, as well as an additional chapter at the end. So the book I’ve read is definitely an overview from high altitude: you get the general outlines in broad strokes, but not much depth.

As such, I still found it interesting to see the similarities among these figures. For instance, most all profiled here are Wesleyan Arminian. Even those who self-identify as Baptists (A.B. Earle, Jacob Knapp) seek a deeper experience after conversion — what Wesleyans call baptism of the Spirit, or entire sanctification. Calvinism, specifically the doctrine of limited atonement, is depicted as dampening to revival because of the fatalism it can engender about who is meant to be saved.

Another similarity is that virtually all of these men and women go through a period of anguish after coming to faith when they desire a deeper walk with God. They are plagued by guilt and a sense of their own sinfulness, and aware of a gap between the kind of union with God they want to experience and their own unbelief that it’s even possible. “He had long been knocking, and oh, how I yearned to receive Him as a perfect Savior!” writes Catherine Booth. “But oh, the inveterate habit of unbelief!”  Frances Ridley Havergal “often wondered why others obtained so easily the blessing for which she agonized and prayed.” “I was weary of a cold heart towards Christ, and His atonement, and the work of His Spirit,” writes Christmas Evans, “of a cold heart in the pulpit, in secret prayer and in study.”

I was struck by their distress. In many cases these were relatively fruitful Christians already. But they felt keenly that there was a deeper intimacy to be had with God, and yearned for it. When is the last time I yearned for God? When is the last time I lost a night of sleep over my relationship with him? I am aware of my spiritual deficiencies and voids, and I do pray about them. But these men and women are at a different level. They’re consumed. Their seeking belongs in the same category as Elijah’s laboring prayer for rain in the Old Testament.

They press in in prayer, and for some of them it takes a night of agony, for others weeks or years, but they attain the infilling they seek. It is marked by subjective signs like a deep peace or an awareness of God’s love that overflows all previous high water marks. And it’s marked objectively by sudden, dramatic effectiveness in preaching. “The sermons were not different; I did not press any new truths; and yet hundreds were converted,” D.L. Moody writes. His experience is typical of the figures touched on in Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians.

I’m as curious about what happens to the “hundreds” as I am about what happens to the evangelists. Did they develop deep roots and maturity in their faith? Were they genuinely converted, or did they make professions based on emotion?

A few paragraphs ago I compared myself unfavorably with these figures that agonize over their walk with God. But is that really the goal? Why is it that for the figures in this book, their initial welcome into the arms of God is followed by a period of such insecurity? In my human relationships, it works in just the opposite way. Why wouldn’t this be the case in my relationship with God?

I grew up in a Baptist church, but it wasn’t until I went to a Methodist-affiliated college that I learned Baptists don’t believe in entire sanctification. This baffled me, since I had heard about it all my life, but not preached as a dramatic second experience after conversion. The stories here offer a very selective conception of the ways an infinitely creative God might go about his work of drawing and blessing and nurturing his children. The Jesus of the gospels works in lots of different ways to invite people into God’s saving work, and offers lots of different imaginative terms. But even though the details of how God performs his deepening work in a life seemed a bit limiting to me, this book inspires by reminding us that there is always a “further up and further in,” and it’s those who ask, seek, and knock who find.

4 Comments

  • Janet

    I don’t discount the reality of what these figures experience. I just wouldn’t say it always looks like this.

  • Carrie, Reading to Know

    =D You large-print, ABRIDGED reader you! Sheesh, don’t know what I can take away from this review after an admission like THAT! ;D (Kidding, of course.)

    Sounds like a book that would (and should) challenge a deeper walk. I frequently feel convicted that I do not passionately YEARN for a deeper relationship with God. Which is why, I suppose, it is of some benefit to read of the ‘saints that have gone before’ as they help inspire, direct and lead us to the cross.

    Thanks for going ahead and reviewing this book!=)

  • Cindy Swanson

    While I’m not sure if this book is for me, I am sometimes convicted of my need for a “deeper walk” or more of a closeness with God. A very well-written review!

    But hey, I don’t feel bad at all about reading a large-print book! I’ll often check them out of the library if that’s the only way a certain book is available. :) I came to terms with my middle-agedness long ago. :)

    I hope you’ll stop by my book blog and say hello:

    Cindy’s Book Club