Over the past few years, we have posted approximately twenty installments in the “Global Context Series.” In this series, we posted notices or reviews about books that help Christians get to know the global scene as a whole, or a particular region or country in particular. We want to reissue this series in a single post so that you can perhaps find the right book for the area and people of the world that most interests you. The links below follow the titles of the original posts in the series.

The books are not necessarily the best books available on a particular subject, but they are among the best books that I have read on that subject. I try to tell you a little bit about the author, the style of the book, its readability, and of course a little bit about its content. I hope that you will find this series helpful. I hope you will enjoy the books, and will find them to be a stimulus to love God as you learn about, and learn to love, the people in God’s world.

Preface

International:

“The Clash of Civilizations”

“The World is Flat 3.0”

“Hot, Flat, and Crowded?”

“A New Christendom With New Faces”

“The Post American World”

Africa:

“An Obsession with Power and Control”

Central Asia:

“The Ayatollah Begs to Differ”

“The Great Game”

“The Ayatollah’s Democracy”

Central Asia / Afghanistan:

“The Kite Runner”

“A Thousand Splendid Suns”

“Ghost Wars”

East Asia / China:

“Chinese Lessons”

“Out of Mao’s Shadow”

Europe:

“Europe, Islam, and Christianity”

“The Penguin History of Europe”

Europe / Russia:

“Stalin’s Children”

North Africa / Middle East:

“How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future of the Globe”

“The Crisis of Islam”

“The Arabs in History”

South Asia:

“Freedom at Midnight”

“On India, Calvinists, and Cow Dung Shampoo”

“The Reluctant Fundamentalist”

By: Philip O. Hopkins

[Editor's Note: This series of posts deals with the global context in its historical, social, cultural, political, economic, demographic, and religious dimensions in particular. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.]

About a year and a half has passed since the controversial reelection of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The election and the protests that followed focused Americans’ attention on Iran in ways not seen since the hostage crisis some 30 years before. In The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge, Hooman Majd helps to open America’s eyes to a country that many fear and know little about. Majd delves into the inner workings of the Iranian political system to show that the “Twitter Revolution” or “green revolution” was not a revolution (or the beginnings of one) at all: it was Iran’s “first real civil rights movement,” (43) and not a rejection of the Islamic ideals upon which the Republic was founded in 1979.

Majd’s belief that the occurrences that happened after the election were more of the beginnings of a civil rights movement than a revolution arises in part from his extensive contact with Iranians in country. Unlike many of the Iranian Diaspora, Majd, a US citizen born in Iran but educated in the West, travels frequently to Iran and knows people in high places in both the conservative and reformist camps. All the political players are committed to Shia Islam even those in the Green Movement. “Shiism, born out of a sense of injustice perpetuated by tyrants” Majd notes, is “central to the thought of the reformists who see power vested in the people but guided by the social system of Islam” (87), which, as Majd makes clear through summarizing Iran’s political system and weaving history into the discussion, is essential to understanding Iranian thought.

Majd notes that the idea of equality is essential to Iranians, which is why civil rights are important to the people. Protests occurred after the elections because Iranians believed that these rights were violated. This is also why the nuclear issue is important. Iranians of all stripes believe nuclear power is their right; a right they seem willing to sacrifice (even Ahmadinejad) if equal conditions are met. Ironically, Ahmadinejad’s defense of this right against the West has gained him respect even among those who despise him.

Much more could be said about The Ayatollahs’ Democracy. Majd’s interaction with America’s involvement with Iran betrays his politically liberal bias (though he does criticize all parties). Even this insight is helpful as his explanation is an accurate reflection of many (if not the majority) of Iranians’ perception of American politics. While not necessary, it would be helpful to read Majd’s first book, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ (reviewed on this site), before reading this one as Majd assumes that Westerners, Americans in particular, now, after the elections and protests, understand to some degree that Iran is not some monolithic terrorist country in which the entire population hates the United States; the opposite, in fact, is true. Finally, I should note that Majd’s language is a bit salty (nothing that one would not hear in any PG-13 movie, but it is worth noting).

Hooman Majd, The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge (NY: Norton, 2010), 282 pages. ISBN: 978-0-393-07259-4. $26.95. Reviewed by Philip O. Hopkins.

This series of posts deals with the global context in its many dimensions-historical, social, cultural, political, economic, and religious. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.

Bernard Lewis’ The Arabs in History is was first published in 1958, revised in 1993, and is still fruitful for the beginning student of Arab history. It is a very concise history, weighing in at only 240 pages, and therefore necessarily does history by a “broad-brush” approach.

For those who have read introductory material about Islam and have been exposed to current affairs in the Middle East through the media, but are not able to put such knowledge in historical context, Lewis’ book is perfect. He begins by giving a brief treatment of Arabia before Islam, which helps uninitiated reader to understand the Middle Eastern context into which Muhammad was about to walk. The second chapter introduces Muhammand and describes the early rise of Islam. In the remaining eight chapters, Lewis gives a lucid and concise exposition of the major events, people, and patterns in Arab history, never failing to show the interconnection of Islam and Arabia.

Lewis’ detractors repeatedly berate him for his essentialist view of Islam and his belief that Islam is fundamentally anti-modern, and reviewers of this book have been no exception. I’ll put my cards on the table here and say both “yes” and “no” to his detractors (with an emphasis on the “no.”) As for essentialism, Muhammad intended for Islam to have an unchanging essence, and expressed his intention very clearly in the Qur’an and in the hadith. Islam is a “religion of the books,” firmly standing on the shoulders of the Qur’an and the hadith. The Qur’an and the official collections of hadith will never change and unless Muslims forsake their belief in authorial intent, original Islam will always be accessible to Muslims through those texts. This does not mean that Muslims and Muslim societies will always look the same across the reaches of the globe or the eras of history. Muslim societies and cultures are necessarily affected by the contingencies of historical, geographical, and chronological context, and further some Muslims are willing to tamper with “original Islam.” For this reasons, Muslim beliefs and practices vary (sometimes wildly) depending upon such contingencies.

As for whether or not Islam is fundamentally anti-modern, “original Islam” is fundamentally anti-modern, primarily because of the intersection of two characteristics of the religion: (1) Islam is not only a religion but a socio-cultural and political system. The religious, socio-cultural, and political cannot be separated while remaining faithful to Muhammad’s message. (2) Islam was founded as an early medieval religious, socio-cultural, and political system and must fundamentally alter itself if it is to be at home in the modern world.

This book is highly recommended as a basic introduction to the Arabs in history.

Book: The Arabs in History (1958, 2002)

Author: Bernard Lewis

Region: North Africa & Middle East

Genre: History

Length: 240 pp.

Difficulty: Intermediate

This series of posts deals with the global context in its many dimensions-historical, social, cultural, political, economic, and religious. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.

J. M. Roberts’ The Penguin History of Europe is the best one-stop history of Europe available. (Norman Davies’ Europe: A History is of comparable quality, although it weighs in at nearly 1400 pages.) Roberts writes for an audience who has some knowledge of the history of Europe, but who would like to put that knowledge into broader context and analyze the broader patterns and themes that surface.

In the first third of the book, he begins with ancient European civilization and works all the way up to late Christendom. In the second third, he walks the reader through modern history from the 16^th through the 19^th centuries. In the final third, he treats the twentieth century, with the two world wars and the Cold War as structural markers.

Roberts is a fair-minded historian, not given to writing revisionist and special interest history. He focuses primarily on the political and economic aspects of European history and secondarily on its socio-cultural aspects. In so doing, he chooses to leave out certain socio-cultural elements that I wish he had included, such as history of philosophy and art. This is not a strong criticism, however, because Roberts is attempting to collate, analyze, and communicate a massive amount of historical data in only 700 pages.

This brings us to a brief discussion of historical surveys which are by nature broad but not particularly deep. The positives are that we are introduced to a wide range of historical phenomena and are able to grasp the big picture, putting what we know in a broader context. The negatives are we are left unaware of many interesting and significant details and must trust the author to “get it right” in his interpretation and analysis of the overall patterns of his presentation.

Roberts The Penguin History of Europe is highly recommended for those interested in a concise overview of the history of Europe.

Book: The Penguin History of Europe (1996)

Author: J. M. Roberts

Region: Europe

Genre: History

Length: 722 pp.

Difficulty: Intermediate-Difficult

In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India

Should you read In Spite of the Gods? That depends. If you’ve never heard a man compare militant Hindus to Calvinists, then yes. This will be amusing. If you are looking for a book that gives a riveting narrative of the rise of modern India, the answer is yes. If you want a book that is well researched and interspersed with colorful and humorous vignettes observed first hand by the author, the answer is yes. If you are looking for an author who is treats religious and theological matters with the depth and discernment that one would expect from an undergraduate, the answer is no.

In Spite of the Gods is held together by one overriding question: Will India be a world power, and if so what type of power will she be? The author, Edward Luce (former Financial Times correspondent in India), answers the question by means of historical research, an enviable grasp of current and international affairs, and numerous and colorful first-hand stories.

The major strand of Luce’s argument is that, within a few decades, India will be a major world player. She will be a major player, in part, because of a good hand dealt her by recent history: Of first importance is the fact that India lost most of its foreign reserves in the aftermath of the 1990-91 Gulf War. As a result, India shifted gears and build an open-market strategy that catapulted it into significance in a rapidly-globalizing world. Another stroke of luck is the English language bequeathed by the English during the days of colonialism. Yet a final good fortune is that China also is on the rise, thereby giving India the opportunity to be a counter-balance to China’s power. India, in Luce’s eyes, is a rising world power and she will be a democratic counterbalance to authoritarian China.

The minor strand of his argument is that India’s rise will be in spite of, and not because of, her gods. Perhaps the most telling story is Luce’s visit to the Cow Product Research Centre outside of the city of Nagpur. At the Centre, run by militant right-wing Hindus (whom he compares to Calvinists!), Luce is given a tour of the laboratories. After being told that he must make the journey barefooted and through piles of cow dung (which, he is told, heals athlete’s foot), he is made to participate in a cow-worshiping ceremony.

“I was handed a silver tray, Luce writes, “with candles on it and also turmeric, rice, flowers and red paste. I had to circle the tray a few times above the head of one of the cows before smearing the paste on the cow’s forehead and my own. ‘Now you are praying to the cow. She is my mother. She is your mother,’ said [the guide]. Mother seemed unfazed by all the attention.”

Next, Luce was taken to into the laboratories where he was shown Bunsen burners and beakers full of cow’s urine, which, he was reassured, is an anti oxidant that will cure cancer. Then there was this: “Next we were shown cow-dung products. My favorite product was cow dung soap. There was also a cow-dung shampoo for dandruff. Mansinghka said the centre had submitted a number of cow-derivative applications to the US Patents Office and other countries. ‘God lives in the cow dung,’ he said. ‘All of these recipes are contained in the holy texts.‘”

The upshot of this encounter, for Luce, is that the Cow Product Research Centre is yet another example of fundamentalism-a uniquely modern religious affliction that people’s ancient symbolic beliefs and holds them to be literally true in the present-comparable to jihadism in Islam and Calvinism in Christianity.

This brings me to my criticism of the book: It should be clear from this little excerpt that when it comes to religious studies and theology, Luce is more of a rock skimmer than a scuba diver. Although he has done his research on matters economic and political, has not done so on matters religious. If a man can compare Islamic and Hindu radicalisms to Christian Calvinism, he has not earned a place at the table concerning issues theological.

Aside from this criticism, I strongly recommend the book for its insightful rendering of the rise of modern India.

Ghost Wars

A wise man would refuse to lug even the paperback version of Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars to bed, for fear of being crushed to death if he dozes off in mid-sentence. However, despite being 712 pages long Coll’s volume is well worth the read for anyone interested in U. S. involvement in Afghanistan beginning in 1979 and spanning more than two decades.

Coll’s book is not a history of Afghanistan, per se, but rather a history of American interaction with Afghanistan from 1979 until September 11, 2001. The drama that unfolds includes a cast of actors that include presidents, generals, mujahedin, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, the Soviet army, and the Pakistani and Saudi Arabian intelligence agencies.

The first part of the book deals with the Soviet-Afghan War (Nov 1979 – Feb 1989), and begins just before the Soviet invasion, as the U. S. began using Afghan warriors to embarrass the Soviet Union. The Americans funneled cash and arms through Pakistan into Afghanistan and managed to succeed in sending the Soviets scurrying back to their borscht. However, the Americans were not alone in funding the war: The United States’ contributions to this campaign were matched and possibly exceeded, however, by those of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The second part of the book deals with the factious aftermath of the Soviet expulsion (March 1989 – Dec 1997). After having covered in detail the humiliating defeat and withdrawal of the USSR, Coll turns to the intramural warfare that followed, including the rise of the Taliban from small faction to ruling party. The reader is given a well-researched and well-written account of Bin Laden’s emergence as a force with which to be reckoned, and of his escape to North Africa.

The third part of the book concentrates on the CIA’s attempts to capture bin Laden (Jan 1998 – Sept 11, 2001). Coll details bin Laden’s return to Afghanistan, where he marries himself to Mullah Mohammed Omar and the Taliban, allowing him to use Afghanistan as a base from which to plan attacks on American assets.

Ghost Wars is crammed full of great stories. Coll’s well-crafted character sketches cover a wide range, including major figures (Mullah Omar, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Ahmed Shah Massoud, bin Laden) as well as more minor characters: (secret agents, warriors, generals, diplomats, suicide bombers). Without Coll, there are many things that we would not now know. How would we have known that Nawaz Sharif was “an unusually dull, muddled politician” who “seemed to offer a bovine, placid gaze in private meetings where he sometimes read awkwardly from note cards“? Or that , at a meeting with Americans, “None of the Taliban wore shoes or sandals. They picked continually at their feet, the Americans could not help but notice“? Or that Ahmed Shah Massoud (the warlord who refused to be controlled by the USSR, the USA, or the Taliban, and who, by the time he was 30, had fended off six direct assaults by the world’s largest conventional army) “had written his thesis on the battle of Gettysburg” when he studied at Pakistan’s elite officer’s college?

Or how would we have ever known that our own CIA was a publisher and distributer of the Qur’an? During the early stages of its proxy war against the USSR, Coll tells us, William Casey and the CIA sought to smuggle books about Central Asian culture and Soviet atrocities into the USSR, hoping to incite a revolution. The Pakistani ISI, however, argued that copies of the Qur’an would be even better, so “The CIA commissioned an Uzbek exile living in Germany to produce translations of the Koran in the Uzbek language. The CIA printed thousands of copies of the Muslim holy book and shipped them to Pakistan for distribution to the mujahedin.” Oh, dear. I think I’ll leave that one alone.

But perhaps the best sketch of all is Mullah Mohammed Omar. The reader is perhaps already aware that Omar had a big beard, wore an eye patch, and was the political and spiritual leader of the Taliban regime. What they might not have known are the details. Omar, Coll tells us, was an expert with rocket-propelled grenade launchers during the Afghan-Soviet war. He was struck in the face by shrapnel and lost his right eye. (Legend has it that he used a knife to cut his own eye out of the socket.) He believed that his dreams were prophetic guides for Afghanistan and used them to make strategic decisions. In fact, Omar said that Allah had appeared to him in a vision and told him to lead the believers.

And “lead the believers” is exactly what he did. In the spring of 1996, Omar summoned over 1,000 Pashtun leaders and scholars to Kandahar for an assembly. In the background stood the Mosque of the

God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis

Reviewed By: Bruce Riley Ashford

Entire forests have been chopped down in order to promulgate the literature that has been written on the religious crisis in Europe, including especially the secularization of Europeans and influx of Islamic immigrants. Bat Y’eor, in Eurabia (2005), argued that Europe is being subverted by Islamic hostility toward the very virtues, values, and vision of Europe herself. Bruce Bawer, in While Europe Slept (2007) argues that radical Islam is destroying the continent from within. Mary Habeck, George Weigel, Richard John Neuhaus, and others have also written of the threat that Islam poses to Europe.

God’s Continent is Philip Jenkins’ contribution to the debate. He thinks that many of the doom and gloom prophecies about Islam and Europe are “wildly unlikely.” Even though there are millions of Muslim immigrants in Europe, and even though their birth rate is significantly higher than the Europeans’, Jenkins begs to differ. He argues that (1) European nations can assimilate minorities, just as the United States has done; (2) Muslims will likely secularize; (3) when they do secularize, they will stop having so many children; (4) most of the Muslims in Europe are moderates; and (5) what threat Islam does pose will likely invigorate Christianity anyway.

If Philip Jenkins writes a book, it is probably worth the read, and this book is no exception. He is probably correct that many immigrants to Europe (whether Muslim or not) will secularize, have less babies, and assimilate to some extent. However, the book has weaknesses of which the most significant is this: Jenkins seems not to grasp the threat that Islam poses to Europe. With Islam comes a radically different view of the relationship of religion and the state, of religious liberty, of family, etc. Further, he seems not to grasp the threat that contemporary jihadism poses. He too quickly dismisses the arguments made in books such as Bernard Lewis’ The Crisis of Islam (2003) Mary Habeck’s Knowing the Enemy (2007).

It is for this reason that his his analogy with the United States is hardly helpful. He suggests that Europe will be able to assimilate Muslim immigrants in much the same way that the U. S. has been able to assimilate its Mexican immigrants. But Mexican immigrants to the United States (many of whom are Catholic) are a rather different case than the millions of African, Middle Eastern, and Asian Muslim immigrants to Europe. Americans have to adjust to Mexican Catholics who sometimes glue St. Christopher to the dash for traveling safety, while Europeans must adjust to Muslim immigrants whose religion demands nothing less than the religious, social, and political submission of their nations to the Allah of Islam. Hardly a helpful analogy.

God’s Continent is worth the read, even if it is not up to the level of The Next Christendom and The New Faces of Christianity, the first two books of his trilogy. Perhaps the best thing that Jenkins’ book can do is to turn the church’s attention toward Europe, the home of 821 million people, many of whom (whether European or immigrant) are without Christ and without hope in the world.

Book: God’s Continent (2007)

Author: Philip Jenkins

Region: Europe

Genre: Current Affairs

Length: 340 pp.

Difficulty: Intermediate

Global Context Series: A New Christendom with New Faces

By: Bruce Riley Ashford

Philip Jenkins believes that we are living in the midst of a monumental moment in religious history, and he has written two books to make his case. The first, The Next Christendom, contains the meat of his argument while the second, The New Faces of Christianity, follows up on certain strands of the argument. The following is a brief review of both books.

Jenkins was affected by recent events in the Anglican Communion and in particular the 1998 Lambeth Conference which condemned homosexuality as incompatible with Christian ministry.

What really raised eyebrows is that the resolution was passed against the will of the English prelates, because of the numerical clout of the burgeoning African church. Bishop John Shelby Spong’s comments were representative of the wrath and condescension of many of the European bishops: “I never expected to see the Anglican Communion, which prides itself on the place of reason in faith, descend to this level of irrational Pentecostal hysteria.”

In The Next Christendom, Jenkins takes a look at this phenomenon. What is the tectonic shift that has allowed the African bishops of the Anglican church to have more clout than the English and American bishops? His answer is that “we are currently living through one of the transforming moments in the history of religion worldwide.” The nerve center of Christianity, Jenkins argues, is moving South and East. The era of Western Christianity (centered in Europe and the United States) is passing and the day of Southern Christianity (centered in Africa, Asia, and South America) is arriving. If present trends continue, Jenkins, argues, then by 2050, only about 20% of the world’s Christians will be non-Hispanic Caucasians.

The doctrinal implications of this are many, as Jenkins demonstrates in The Next Christendom and expands upon in The New Faces of Christianity. The new Southern Christianity has held to the traditional Christian positions on abortion, homosexuality, divorce, gender and ministry. A majority of these Southern churches are heavily influenced by the charismatic and Pentecostal movements. Services are often marked by spontaneous and emotional worship, tongues, healings, and exorcisms. These churches, however, are also markedly different than many charismatic churches in that they often emphasize the blessedness of poverty and suffering.

Further, Jenkins argues, this growth of Christianity could spawn an era of religious wars, particularly between Islam and Christianity: “Across the Muslim world, many believers have shown themselves willing to fight for the cause of international Islam with far more enthusiasm than they demonstrate for any individual nation. Putting these different trends together, we have a volatile mixture that could well provoke horrific wars and confrontations.”

If this were merely the story of an ethnic and geographic shift, that would be significant in and of itself. However, it is much more. It is a story of a massive shift in belief and practice. In an article, “After the Next Christendom,” Jenkins reflects upon the reactions to his book. He writes that he “was fascinated by the reactions of alarm and near-horror that surfaced in liberal circles, aghast at the prospect of legions of Southern fundamentalists about to begin a Long March against the centers of Western Christianity….Conservatives, in contrast, were delighted by the prospect of a traditionalist and biblically oriented Christianity arising in Africa, Asia, and Latin America…” Indeed, Southern Christianity is, in juxtaposition to mainstream churches in Europe and America, very conservative.

Although this monumental shift reaches across the face of nearly all denominations and church networks, the Anglican communion once again is illustrative. The African Anglican churches accuse the Western Anglican church of rejecting Biblical and historic Christianity. Various statements have been issued, including the following declaration of the Nigerian church: “The unscriptural innovations,” they write, “of North American and some western provinces on issues of human sexuality undermine the basic message of redemption and the power of the Cross to transform lives. These departures are a symptom of a deeper problem, which is the diminution of the authority of Holy Scripture.”

However, there are many flavors of “conservative,” and many American evangelicals would not be happy with the Southern flavors. Larry Poston, in his article “Interfacing with ‘The Next Christendom,’” pointed out seven issues that will be central in defining the relationship of Northern and Southern Christianity. They are worthy of mentioning here: (1) The inscripturated Word of God versus the “Word of God for today;” (2) Signs and wonders: accept or reject? (3) Demonic Forces: Respecting their power but avoiding neo-Animism; (4) Theological systems vs. “only trusting in the Spirit;” (5) The public square: important or not? (6) Gender roles in society and church; and (7) the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches: What is the relationship?

These are some of the challenges, for better or for worse, that lie ahead as the center of Christian gravity moves from the North to the South. As Jenkins puts it, “Christianity, a religion that was born in Africa and Asia, has in our lifetimes decided to go home.” Both books, The Next Christendom and The New Faces of Christianity, are worth the read for anybody interested in state of the global church.

Global Context (Russia): Stalin’s Children

By: Bruce Riley Ashford

It was my privilege to live in Russia from 1998-2000 and that is one reason that this book held me captive from the very first page. But that is not the only reason. Stalin’s Children is a masterful work of historical autobiography, telling the tale of three generations of love, war, and survival. It is told from the perspective of Owen Matthews, whose grandfather and father are the central characters of this story. Matthews, who is the Bureau Chief for Newsweek in Moscow, draws upon the voluminous correspondence of his parents, access to KGB files, and his own lived experience of Russia, giving us not only a tale of three generations of his family, but also an ironic, enlightening, and ultimately bleak portrayal of the last seven decades of life in Russia.

“This is a story about Russia and my family,” writes Matthews, “about a place which made us and inspired us and very nearly broke us. And it is ultimately a story about escape, about how we all escaped from Russia, even though all of us-even my father, a Welshman who has no Russian blood, even me, who grew up in England-still carry something of Russia inside ourselves, infecting our blood like a fever.“

Stalin’s Children is a story in three acts. The first act tells the story of the author’s maternal grandfather, Boris Bibikov, a privileged Communist party leader in Ukraine, who was a real (albeit minor) enemy of Stalin and his vision for the USSR. As Matthews tells it, one morning Bibikov kissed his wife and two daughters goodbye, never to return again. Bibikov’s wife, Martha, soon disappeared also (imprisoned in the Gulag), leaving their two little girls, Lyudmila and Lenina, to fend for themselves. They became, in a phrase, “Stalin’s children.” The two little girls were separated during the Glorious Russian Patriotic War (Soviet nomenclature for World War II), but were reunited against all odds at the end of the war.

The author paints a bleak picture of this early chapter of Soviet history: “Communists-men like my grandfather-had tried to create a new kind of man, emptying people of their old beliefs and refilling them with civic duty patriotism and docility. But when Communist ideology was stripped away, so its quaint fifties morality also disappeared into the black hole of discarded mythologies. People put their faith in television healers, Japanese apocalyptic cults, even in the jealous old God of Orthodoxy. But more profound than any of Russia’s other, new-found faiths, was an absolute, bottomless nihilism. Suddenly there were no rules, no holds barred, and everything went for those bold and ruthless enough to go out and grab as much as they could.” Rather than creating a New Communist Man, and nourishing a new society devoid of societal ills, the Communist regime produced a police state and a Gulag with millions of victims, and fostered a chaotic and nihilistic society and culture.

The second act picks up some twenty five years after the disappearance of Bibikov and is, essentially, a love story. Matthews’ father, Mervyn, grew up in London dreaming of moving to Russia and soon fulfilled his dream by moving to Russia to become a British embassy staffer in Moscow. While in Moscow, he immerses himself in Russian culture, eventually being recruited by the KGB in the 1960s.

At the same time, little Lyudmila has grown up, become an excellent student, and is trying to make the most of her disadvantaged life. In 1963, Mervyn and Lyudmila meet and fall in love. Mervyn, however is thrown out of Russia for the atrocious crime of making a personal sale (although the author makes clear that Mervyn’s true crime is a refusal to be an informant for the KGB). For the next six years, Mervyn worked tirelessly to reunite with Lyudmilla and marry her. He waged an international campaign through the media, friends, and embassy staffers, to reunite with and marry her. Finally, she was allowed to leave the USSR in 1969, and they were married.

The third act picks up with the author Owen Matthews-at that time a young journalist in Russia-discovering Bibikov’s KGB File which recounts in detail the grandfather’s fate at the hands of the KGB. Matthews is able to put together the pieces of his family puzzle, making sense of the parts of the narrative that he already knew. Among other discoveries, he finds the record of his grandfather’s final act: his signature on a confession of treason. The third act is, on the whole, not as exciting as the first two, but nonetheless provides the author with an opportunity to paint a picture of life in Russia at the turn of the 21^st century.

I found myself taken in by this story about three generations of the Bibikov/Matthews family. For one thing, it is a well-told story by a man with an eye for detail. Take, for example, his portrayal of Lt. Colonel Timofeyevna: “The investigator appointed to the case was Svetlana Timofeyevna, a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. She was a confident and matronly woman who sized me up with a shameless, penetrating stare, well used to separating men into wimps and loudmouths. She was one of those portly, invincible, middle-aged Russian women, whose kind lurked like Dobermans in the front office of all Russia’s great men; they ruled ticket offices and lorded it over hotel reception desks.” Now that is hard to top.

But in addition to being a well-told story, it also has stirred up a bit of my own affection for Russia. As Matthews recounts Bibikov’s fate, I cannot help but remember my childhood, when my parents received The Prisoner Bulletin, an underground newsletter that told the fate of pastors and other believers who were sent to the Gulag. I think of the deep faith of these martyrs, many of them Russian Baptists, who believed that the Lord Jesus Christ is better than anything that life could give or that torture and death could take away.

Further, as I worked through the chapters of the book, face to face with a Russian family through the past seven decades of Russian history, I remembered my Russian friends and their families whose warmth and hospitality I will never forget. Matthews’ narrative really is an existential entry into the tragedy of atheistic communism and the nihilism it fostered. The majority of my Russian friends found it hard to believe there exists a just and loving God, and likewise could not imagine that their lives had any real purpose or meaning.

Although Matthews does not communicate the point explicitly, the discerning reader will see that Soviet Communism provided a narrative that was intended to subvert and overthrow biblical religion. It provided a false god (the state) with a false savior, (Marx), false prophets (Lenin, Stalin), and a false church (the Communist Party, whose youth meetings were marked by, inter alia, atheistic hymns and sermons), all of which gave hope of a false eschatological salvation (a “New Heavens and Earth” which would appear when the Communist Man has overthrown class society and lives in Communist utopia).

The result of this fundamental misunderstanding of cosmic history has been nihilism, hedonism, and antinomianism. Matthews points out the ills of the past 70 years of Russian history, stretching from the brutality of Stalin’ purges to the chaos and nihilism of contemporary Russian culture. But perhaps the more significant lesson to be drawn for Western readers is that democratic capitalism, while it may fare better as a political and economic system, fares no better than neo-Marxism as a Savior of mankind, or as an interpretive key for cosmic history. At bottom of cosmic history are not economic, political, or military forces, but rather the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of history, and He alone holds history in his hand.

Book: Stalin’s Children (2008)

Author: Owen Matthews

Region: Europe-Russia

Genre: Historical Autobiography

Length: 308 pp.

Difficulty: Intermediate

Global Context (East Asia-China): Chinese Lessons

By: Bruce Riley Ashford

This series of posts deals with the global context in its many dimensions-historical, social, cultural, political, economic, and religious. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.

Chinese Lessons is a lively, witty, and intimate portrait of five Chinese nationals who the author met in 1981 during Deng Xiaoping’s cautious reopening of China to the West and China’s rise as a police state flirting with capitalism. The author, John Pomfret, was an American exchange student at Nanjing University in the 1980s, and afterwards served two stints as a journalist in China.

The book centers on this small circle of close friends that he made as an exchange student. They are Big Bluffer Ye, Book Idiot Zhou, Little Guan, Old Xu, and Daybreak Song. Pomfret details not only his encounters with them during college, but also narrates their lives pre- and post-college. He shows how they sprung forth from the soil of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and how they negotiated life after college, under the capricious hand of the Party and in the context of China’s current rise to power.

The book is helpful for those who would like an accessible and lively portrayal of Chinese society and culture, with bits and pieces of recent Chinese history along the way. Pomfret draws upon personal experience, intimate conversations, interviews, and personal diaries in painting a portrait of his friends, their families, and life in China. At times the story is sad, as he details how his classmates witnessed the humiliation and torture of their family and friends at the hands of the Chinese police state. But it is not always sad, as he tells how they each fell in love, got married, gave birth to children, found jobs, and otherwise made something of the life they were given.

Along the way, many themes emerge, among which are the following five. First, Pomfret shows the immorality that pervades the economic sector of Chinese society today, and argues that it was fostered by the Cultural Revolution which encouraged a ruthlessly competitive economic environment. Second, he details political corruption, as evidenced, for example, by the government’s refusal to come clean about SARS epidemics, poisoned water supplies, political assassinations and other issues. Third, he points out China’s demographic crisis caused by a rapidly aging population that is disproportionately male and its environmental crisis causes by consistent degradation of land, water, and sky. Fourth, many Chinese are still involved in ancestor worship, the appeasement of territorial ghosts, and other such folk religious practices that do not fit the image of an emerging world power. But fifth, Pomfret remains convinced that China is the story of the 21^st century, in spite of all of its flaws.

Pomfret’s knowledge of and immersion in Chinese society and culture, his affection for the Chinese people, his eye for detail, and his sharp wit combine to make this book an exciting and informative read.

Book: Chinese Lessons (2006)

Author: John Pomfret

Region: East Asia (China)

Genre: Historical Journalism

Length: 312 pp.

Difficulty: Intermediate