Lt. General William K. Harrison Jr.

I first heard of William K. Harrison Jr. on the radio some time ago.  He was being used as an example of someone who made sure he read the word of God every day, even when things got really busy; and things were really busy in his life, as it was noted that this man was a general in World War II.

 Not a lot of information was given, but that piqued my interest. But I was sort of afraid he'd be some sort of nominal Christian guy who just read his Bible for just for the sake of 'morality', rather than being the real deal.

I tried to find more information about him, and discovered some articles that he had written

One was "Professional Excellence for the Christian Officer"

And the other one is "May A Christian Serve in the Military".  I'll give an excerpt from that one here: 

From the section in that article,  "The Real Cause of War".

"From a Biblical standpoint the answer is simple. The world is dead in sin. Lust, plunder, and war are the natural characteristics of the human race, dead and lost in sin (Romans 1:18-32). Many good Christians seek to eliminate war by dressing up the outside of the cup, seeking to cure the apparent causes of war. The real cause of war is in the sinful heart of man. The Lord said that except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Being born again is a miracle. It comes only when one believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and as the Son of God. People believe when they hear the gospel. Never has the preaching of the gospel succeeded in converting more than a portion of hearers at any one time.

Even at Pentecost in the great city of Jerusalem only 3,000 believed at the most wonderful exhibition of gospel power in church history. The rapid growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire resulted first in the persecution of Christians, and then ultimately in the decay of spiritual Christian life into the dark ages of medieval centuries. The Protestant Reformation did not produce more than a partial awakening. Today there is an apostasy from the simple, pure Word of God and faith in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God and the only Savior.

We are not called to preach the gospel to save the world from war and crime. We can preach the gospel all we want to, but only a few believe. Christ said that broad is the way that leads to destruction and many are they that find it, and narrow is the way that leads to life and few are they that find it. The preaching of the gospel is to them who are saved a savor unto life, unto them who are lost a savor unto death. The Scriptures say that God is now taking out a people for His name. I can find no place in the Scripture where it intimates that the preaching of the gospel of grace will succeed in converting the world.

On the other hand, it does say that the gospel should be preached to all the world as a witness…."

Those articles made me curious to know more about this guy.  I did some research on the internet, and there was only a bit of information.  The end of the above articles give a short summary of who Harrison was:  "Lieutenant General William K. Harrison, Jr., retired in 1956 after forty four years in the Army. He was assistant division commander of the 30th Infantry Division, rated by General S.L.A. Marshall as the best division in the European Theater during World War II. He was chief U.N. negotiator at Panmunjom, Korea, and subsequently served as commander in chief of the Caribbean Command. General Harrison served as president of OCF from 1954-1972 and as president emeritus from 1972 until his death in 1987."

Wikipedia didn't have much more information.  But I found that there was a biography of Harrison called, "A Man Under Orders"by D. Bruce Lockerbie.  It was published in 1979,is out of print, and the copies I was finding were rather expensive (I think one of the ones I found was $60), even its "list price" is absurd, $1000 something dollars. 

Instead, I found book about the 30th division that he was assistant commander of in World War II.  The book is, "OldHickory: The 30th Division: The Top-Rated American Infantry Division in Europein World War II" by Robert Baumer.  The book was quite interesting in and of itself (you can buy it on Amazon), and Harrison is mentioned quite a bit, though it doesn't really go into his beliefs. But it was interesting to see how much of a leader he was and how courageous. Baumer says, "He would become one of the most frequently seen general officers of WWII in the front lines with his men, and widely admired for his courage."

The author, Robert Baumer, apparently read my review of his book, and he noticed that I had mentioned that I was having difficulties finding a copy of Harrison's biography.  The author messaged me and said that he had a copy of the book that he didn't need anymore, and that he'd send it to me.  It was very, very kind of him. 

So I read the book, and loved it.  Or rather, loved to see what God did in the life of this man.

He was a Christian for most of his life, and God's sanctification of him usually involved his not getting what he wanted. Harrison's aspiration was to use his leadership skills as a soldier.  During World War I, when he graduated from West Point, he wanted to go be sent from there to France, but was instead sent to Arizona to guard the border.  Then, he was assigned to teach languages at West Point.  "While Harrison kept himself respectable in the classroom, his heart had never been teaching foreign languages.  He felt as though he were wasting time. To amuse himself, he turned to puzzling out problems in tactics doing his best not to atrophy as a soldier."   He learned how to teach well, and this served him well later, he became "renowned" for his teaching of troops.  And God kept teaching him submission by giving him tasks that he didn't want.

As mentioned above, he liked solving tactics problems, and he liked coming up with solutions to other military problems as well, just for fun and to keep his military mind sharp.  Even that came in handy later on. 

I was very interested to find that God pivotally used him in World War II.  Two events really stand out.  First, a little before America entered the war, he was assigned to General Marshall's Committee on Allocation of Responsibilities which was given the job of figuring out a reorganization of the Army High command (which was in great disarray).  This especially needed to be done in case war broke out. After weeks of the other members wrangling and disagreeing about how to do it, Harrison, who had kept pretty quiet most of the time, said that he had the solution to the problem.  And that afternoon, dug though the papers he had doodled on for fun and found one that he had done several months earlier. ""On a single sheet of paper, he had sketched out a plan to reorganize the United States Army." He edited it a little and presented it the next day. And that was the plan the committee ended up going with.  Asa result of this, he was promoted to Brigadier General.  A few years later, he was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for having come up with the plan.

He ended up becoming assistant commander of the 30th infantry division.  His commander, Hobbs, turned over his own responsibility of training the troops over to Harrison.  The top commander was supposed to do that but Hobbs apparently didn't want that responsibility.  Harrison did the job well.  And then when they went overseas, he seemed to be the real leader of the men.  Harrison was one of the "most seen generals on the battlefield".  He did most of the legwork for Hobbs and loved to lead from the front.

The second pivotal thing he did that God used to really help the Allies, came in the midst of disaster. Having arrived in France , The 30th Infantry Division was going to participate in Operation Cobra, which, was to push further into France.  This operation was to begin with a major saturation bombing of the enemy with the troops then moving in afterward. On the day it was to begin, Harrison was with the men up front.  To the men's surprise, the planes (whose pilots didn't have an accurate visual) bombed their own men.  They started firing back at their own planes. The invasion didn't take place that day. They tried again the next day, but the SAME THING happened.  More than 600 of the men had been hit. Harrison, who was with the men again, was almost killed, surviving "an almost direct hit from not one but two bombs". he was thrown down but unharmed. His initial response was out of character, he was very angry, and screamed up at the pilots, calling them an indecent name. I wish that the biographer, who included a lot of dialogue from interviews he'd had with Harrison, would have had Harrison comment on his bad response, which I'm sure he wouldn't have condoned.  Anyway, he calmed down pretty quick though.

 The attack still had to happen, and so, despite many of  their own men being dead or wounded from the friendly fire, Harrison successfully pushed the men forward.  I'll let the Distinguished Service Cross he received later on for this action sum it up. His citation read, "On 25 July 1944, General Harrison quickly reorganized the leading elements of his division which had previously become disorganized by the bombing of friendly aircraft. Realizing that the success of the entire operation depended on the 30th infantry Division carrying out its mission, General Harrison, with complete disregard for his personal safety and unselfish devotion to duty, accompanied the demoralized troops as they began their advance. Through his valor, courage, and presence in the very front of the attack, General Harrison inspired the men to a successful completion of their mission."

A Brigadier General, Stewart L. Hall, who was the 30th Divisions Intelligence chief said, "I believe it was General Harrison's example at that instant that turned the tide3 of the war in the early days of the fighting in Normandy."

Anyway, despite all his hard work, he still didn't get the recognition/promotion that he wanted.  It was when he was wounded some time later(from being up at the front again) that he realized that he had become proud, "Being wounded and out of action became a pivotal incident in Harrison's life, as he himself concedes. 'You see,' he admits, 'I'd been kidding myself all along that I was working to serve God.  But I'm very human, and without my realizing it, I was really striving for myself.  I was particularly upset because, I guess, my abilities as the next Napoleon weren't being recognized.  I knew, and I think my men knew, who was responsible for making the 30th Infantry Division everything it was cracked up to be.  But I was still only the Assistant Division Commander.  My pride made me forget God altogether.'"  He refocused and got back to work with a better perspective.

After the war, he was still  assigned to jobs he didn't really want.  He was summoned to  Japan, "…Harrison was surprised and dismayed to learn that he had not been assigned to a division; rather, he had been personally selected by Macarthur to be executive for economic affairs, then later chief of the Reparations section, Allied Powers' General Headquarters."

And then, when trouble broke out in North and South Korea, Harrison wanted to be assigned to duty in the battle zone, but instead, upon being called to Washington, "he was informed that he had been appointed chief of the Army-Air Force Troop Information and Education Division, another desk job." He was responsible for "propaganda and university extension courses." Still, he did his best in the job, recognizing Who had given it to him:  "What did I know about education or propaganda! Nothing, and I cared even less!  But I figured God wanted me doing that job, or else He wouldn't have placed me there."

A bit later he was assigned to be in command of a training center. He liked training soldiers better than the propaganda job he had had, though it still wasn't the battlefield.  Near the end of 1951, he finally was about to get, what he thought was, his chance to be in the action.  He was appointed Deputy Commander of the 8th Army.    He was finally going to the front.  After a few weeks of inspection tours to acquaint himself with the situation, he was interrupted by another job assignment.  That of being on the Truce team.

This was yet another job he didn't want, and a job that he didn't really agree should be done at this point.  He thought that it would be futile and that they should conquer the North Koreans before negotiating a deal.  But again, God had given him this job, so he needed to do it to the best of his ability.

"Ever since he had been a little boy, Harrison had been preparing himself for a major command in the army.  As Mark Clark says of him, 'Bill was always a cavalry man looking for that chance to shock the enemy with a charge.' But his ambition had never been fulfilled; his skill as a field commander never recognized and so, never tested.  Instead, at the climax of his service, his country called upon him to exercise every other quality for which he had been schooled.  Where a cavalry charge would have failed, lessons learned in the drudgery of bureaus, sections, committees, boards, and other General Staff desk jobs succeeded.  In the always astonishing providence of God, those very traits that Harrison's long years of varied duties had taught him - patience tact, analytical incisiveness, and a resilient spirit buoyed by faith - were what he most needed at Pammujom."

It was a very tough job, but Harrison was able to show the North Koreans that he meant business.  As everyone knows, a sort of deal was reached and has been in place ever since.  Harrison has been in the news, in a way lately, with the heightened conflict with South Korea this past year or two, news articles have revisited the original Armistice along with pictures of Harrison signing it  (sitting at the table on the left in this picture).

I do want to warn about some things though.  Harrison seemed quite staunch in his Christianity, but then there is this excerpt from the book:  "But while he did not use his rank to promote religious activities within the Division, he did what he could to encourage the work of chaplains.  When he found a chaplain doing his best to help the men by raising their morale - whether Harrison agreed with him theologically or not - he encouraged him to carry on."  I didn't quite know what to make of that. I suppose if they were just raising morale fine…but I'm hoping that he didn't encourage any chaplains who have major theological/soteriological differences, like Roman Catholicism (which teaches that Jesus Christ is not the only Mediator between God and man, along with other unbiblical  things).   

I also want to note that there is some swearing and vulgar language in this book.

  

But overall I really liked the account. It's so nice to read of brave soldiers who fought well.  But I truly admire Christian soldiers, as they are the ones with true bravery.  True bravery isn't merely conquering fear, it's trust in God, that all things really do work out for good for His people, conforming them to the image of Christ (Rom 8:28-29).  It's really sad reading about brave men who risk their lives for their country when you realize that they are not Christian, and that they would go straight to Hell if they died.  When you think about it, from a biblical perspective, the bravery of non Christian soldiers is insanity because they ultimately either don't think about God, or trust in their own good works or something other than Christ, and have no overriding fear of meeting their Maker. Even if the military person makes it through war, if he still doesn't become a Christian, it's horribly sad when he dies even just of old age. But that's not the case when you read that a Christian died. It makes me think of the verse, "The Lord takes no delight in the death of the wicked" (Ezek 33:11) in contrast to "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints"( Psalm 116:15)

The biography was written while Harrison was still alive (I think he was in his 80s at the time). But he was still living a life of faith at the time, and it sounds as though he did until the end when he went to be with the Lord in 1987. Harrison was a Christian, he trusted in God and knew that God had taken care of his sin, and so was brave in the midst of danger, knowing that God was in control of whatever happened.  That is true bravery.  God-given bravery. And even the monotonous parts of his life were inspiring because he trusted God even in those, doing his best with whatever God gave him to do.  It truly was encouraging to read about God's work in this man's life.

I hope that the book is republished again sometime (maybe without the bad language). Right now there are some more copies available for sale (lowest is $100 right now)on Amazon. But I have found that it is also available to read/digitally borrow for free online at OpenLibrary.  

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For Brotherhood & Duty - By Brian R. McEnany

It is fascinating to look back on history and zoom in as it were on the earth to see what God had ordained to happen in a particular country, during a particular time period.  And to focus in on it even further and see what He had planned for individuals. 

For Brotherhood & Duty: The Civil War History of the West Point Class of 1862 by Brian R. McEnany is a very interesting look at a group of some of the young men affected by the Civil War.  They came together in 1858 from north and south of the United States to study together at West Point, expecting to serve in the same U. S. military when they graduated.  The secession of many Southern States and the U.S. government advocating military action to subdue those states changed things.  Some of the cadets ended up leaving West Point to join the Confederate states, others took the required oath to be faithful to the Union. 

The author uses West Point Graduate (1862)Tully McCrea's story as a sort of springboard for the others.  After being wounded during the war, McCrea went back to West Point as an instructor while he recovered.  This book imagines what it may have been like for him to look back to his life as a cadet and also his life during the war.  Each chapter begins with a bit of fictionalized imagining of McCrea's daily life as an instructor, events during the day lead up to him having a flashback, as it were, of his and his classmates history. 

This book follows these men from their entrance into West Point, their years of study and discipline up until the events leading up to the Civil War caused friction and division, resolve in many cadets to fight for the union, and in a few others to fight for the rights of the Confederacy.  Then you are led through the war and various battles, observing the actions of various individuals, from this particular West Point class, through the war itself.  I particularly liked that the author uses many excerpts from the men's own accounts of daily events and battles so that you can 'hear things' in their own words, getting an eye-witness' perspective

There were several little tidbits of history that I found quite fascinating. Like the fact that the West Point Campgrounds, which every year were named after a well-known person, had, shortly before the Civil War, been named after Robert E. Lee and also Jefferson Davis. Also, the class of 1862 had instructors who became famous later on in the war, including Edward P. Alexander and John F. Reynolds.  It was intriguing to find that, because of the unique events of the time, the oath that West point cadets took e was changed, twice, to make it clear that they were swearing alliance to the union over the individual states, "I will maintain and defend the sovereignty of the United States, paramount to any and all allegiance, sovereignty, or fealty I may owe to any State…" , and then changed again to be even more strict.  The new oath(s) overrode any particular questions as to which was to have the paramount loyalty, the union, or one's home state.

The Cadets did not all serve in the same part of the military, they were scattered around the U.S. military and the Confederate military. Some took part in battles that others were not involved in, some served closely with fellow classmates, some fought against fellow classmates, some were wounded and some were killed.  The men participated in many famous battles, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, and of course, Gettysburg.  All the way to Appomattox.  There are battle maps and pictures throughout that really help to visualize things.  At the end of the book is a helpful compilation of individual summarized biographies, and pictures, of the Class of 1862.

I learned a lot from this is very interesting and very well-written book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Civil War, or history in general. 

Many thanks to the folks at the University Press of Kentucky for sending me a free review copy (my review did not have to be favorable)!

My rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

*****

This book may be purchased at Amazon

Alvin York - By Douglas V. Mastriano

Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne by Douglas V. Mastriano is a very interesting account of the life of this man, of what happened on the battlefield in World War 1 that elevated York, a former pacifist, to fame.

 Alvin York was born into what became a large family, the third of eleven children (the family lived in a one room cabin on a farm by the way!).  His two older brothers where married and had farms of their own when his father died and so York became the head of the family.  After this, despite having been born into a Christian family, York went downhill morally and became a heavy drinker and a gambler, and of course, associated with bad people.  He acknowledged that his sins started small and then these things became controllers of his life.  Change came when York became a Christian and actively put away and resisted his old habits, he truly became a "new creation", a new person. 

When war broke out between the United States and Germany in 1917, Alvin York faced the strong possibility of being drafted.  He had become a pacifist by this time, struggling to reconcile His new found life in service to God and passages in the Bible that he thought indicated that Christians should not physically fight and kill other people, even under the authorization of their own government.  He appealed for exemption from military service, but his appeal was denied and he was called up to serve.  Alvin's pastor encouraged him to trust God in all of this, and Alvin obeyed the draft summons and joined the army.  I thought that it was neat to see his acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God in all of this, making sure to be obedient and serve well in this place where God had placed him, even though to be there was against his own will. 

Still burdened in conscience about killing other people, York finally approached his commanding officer with his concerns, which officer brought him to another officer, and both of them graciously discussed what the Scripture had to say on the subject, York quoting Scriptures that he thought supported pacifism, and the officers bringing him to Scriptures that indicated that the Bible was not against war.  He ended up becoming convinced that it was okay for him to go to war, though perhaps still having some struggles with doubts for a little while afterward.  And so York stays in the fighting of the section of the army, and ends up making the famous capture of 132 German soldiers, which event, and the aftermath of York's life are also recounted by the author. 

I thought that that  Mastriano did a very good job with this biography, it was well written and interesting, and there are many excerpts from York's personal accounts and statements.  At the end of the book, there is as chapter dealing with his research into the spot where the famous event happened, showing pictures of the bullets and giving accounts of other archaeological evidence confirming the location, and York's account, of the event.

 I also liked many of the little details that are given, such as where it is noted that York's wife Gracie did not like the part in the movie that ended up being made about York where she and York are seen  kissing before they are married - which they apparently did not do in real life.   And as another example, I was especially surprised to find out that part  of the motivation for the particular attack on the Germans, in which York's division participated (and in which York became famous), was to free 'The Lost Battalion.'

York was a very interesting and principled Christian man, and humble as well as is evidenced in his endeavor to honor those men who were with him and give the credit to the Lord for what he was enabled to do.   This is an inspiring biography. 

Many thanks to the folks at the University Press of Kentucky for sending me a free review copy of this book (the review did not have to be positive)

My Rating:  5 out of 5 stars

*****

One of the places where this book may be purchased is at Amazon.com

My Rating:  5 out of 5 stars

*****

One of the places where this book may be purchased is at Amazon.com

Jefferson's America - By Julie Fenster

Jefferson's America: The President, The Purchase and the Explorers Who Transformed A Nation by Julie M. Fenster is well written and very interesting.  I have heard of Lewis and Clark and knew a tiny bit about their exploration but I have never heard of others who were equally important at the time such as: Dunbar, Hunter, Forest or Pike.  And yet perhaps I had heard of them in school but I didn't keep any memory of them or their expeditions in my head. 

This book is a very intriguing account of how and why Jefferson initiated the exploration westward of what was then a comparatively small U.S., how he made the Louisiana Purchase (and the controversy around the purchase)and how he made it secure and justified his purchase by courting public interest in the expeditions he had sent out.  It mainly focuses on the men whom Jefferson sent out to do the exploring, and their adventures are quite intriguing. Most of the men Jefferson picked for the task of exploring and finding the sources of the Missouri River, the Mississippi and the Red River were very determined, smart and persevering men.  They were determined to keep on with the tasks they had been given despite very low water levels (to the point where they were scraping along the bottom of the rivers and had to drag the boats with ropes), dangers from frostbite, starvation, capture by various enemies and even danger from getting shot accidentally by themselves or their own men (Whenever that happened they still pressed on of course)!  It was almost exhausting just to read about the hardships they went through!  One of the men, Pike, was so determined that he would keep on marching even though  his feet were bleeding but, "Pike didn't stop.  Long into each night, the red grid marks in the snow led to the south." Fenster remarks, "Apparently Pike believed that his body would adjust to whatever his brain could handle - and not the other way around."  I very much admire that kind of determination and discipline.  

I like the style of the book, it really pulls you into the struggles and atmosphere of the time in which these explorers lived. Before I read this book I did not adequately appreciate how amazing it is that America is actually as large as it is, nor did I realize how un-united Americans were even shortly after the war for Independence.  Some of the accounts were a bit awkward, for instance someone goes to meet someone but is told that the person they want to meet with is (I'm paraphrasing with modern lingo) using the bathroom so they need to wait.  It was an actual accounting…I would never have thought that something like that would have made it in someone's diary, but it did!  There were immoral practices that are referenced in the books as well (such as prostitution), and at least one of the guys sent out to survey land wasn't very principled in morals.  So I'd suggest being careful if one is reading this with kids.  But otherwise I think that it is a very intriguing and informative account of a major part of the beginning of the formation of what is now the United States.

Before I end this I just want to mention that I found Fenster's point that the 18th century was a very quiet era compared to ours very interesting.  They didn't have a lot of very loud noises while we experience them all of the time, cars, planes and even music.  She mentions this when she gives Dunbar's account of hearing a waterfall and describing it as the sound of "horrid din of a hurricane in New Orleans in the year 1779".  I had never thought about that before, that our time-period is much louder than the ones before it.  Anyway, this is quite an intriguing history book, it includes maps and pictures in its pages as well!

Thanks to Blogging for Books for sending me a free review copy of this book(My review did not have to be favorable)

This book may be purchased at (among other places): Amazon.com

Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It - By John Ferling

"From one person God made all nations who live on earth, and he decided when and where every nation would be…" Acts 17:26 (Scripture quoted from the Contemporary English Version © 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.)  It is fascinating to see the events that God had ordained to bring America onto the world scene as an independent nation in 1776. 

Independence was not on everyone's mind when the American Revolution began.  Many Americans simply wanted to have adequate representation and influence in the British government of their land.  Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It - by John Ferling highlights some of the thinking that was going on at the time, and some of the events and writings that sparked a change of thought in many people.  Ferling states in the preface that, "This book argues that the colonists were generally happy with the imperial relationship in the early 1760s, and for a considerable time thereafter.  If Great Britain…had repealed most of its objectionable new colonial policies, as the First Continental Congress demanded in 1774, returning the Anglo-American relationship to where it had stood in 1763, Congress would not have declared independence."  

The term, 'Whirlwind', John and Abigail Adam's description of the revolution, is an adequate title for this account of the American arrival at, and fight for, independence.   Events were happening, and thinking was changing, fast.  There were divided views on various things and mistakes along the way.  I was disappointed to realize more fully that before the revolution, as it was building up, some Americans were unnecessarily aggressive towards British leadership and instead of using peaceful means of protest they acted like a spoiled child who doesn't get their way and who puts up a temper tantrum, though they did it in a more adult way: they burned people in effigy, destroyed property…etc.   As if that was a good way to demonstrate the rightness of their cause!  And then there were divisions in congress, some wanted reconciliation with the King, and others began to see that Independence was necessary. Also, many of the American military leaders made mistakes in the fight with Britain, men weren't paid, wrong moves were made, aggressive military action wasn't taken fast enough..etc.  It is amazing that the American military force didn't dissolve altogether, but God had determined that an independent America was to come into being and so it happened.

Ferling shows, throughout the book, the irony that many of the Americans who called for freedom, and demanded it as a right, denied it to other men, and had slaves.  Some began to change their minds of course, and some already were against it and had never been for it, living out their perspective by not owning slaves, and whose American and British ancestors had never owned slaves either.  But as the author points out, "In a revolution supposedly against tyranny and for liberty, natural rights and equality, the surprise was not that some whites were prompted to reconsider slavery, but that more were not moved to do so."  To give an example of how mixed up it was, George Washington owned slaves, Thomas Jefferson was against slavery and yet, ironically, he owned slaves, John Adams was against slavery and he was consistent in his beliefs in that he did not own slaves.   

Overall, I found this account very interesting, though not extremely intricate nor does it delve very deeply into this part of history, I thought it was a good overview of the events and perspectives of the time.  I do need to note that, the book does have some bad language as apparently some people back in the 1700s cursed people and things and used other crude terms as well.  I also want to note that I did not agree with all of the perspectives Ferling expressed, but overall, I thought that this was an interesting account of the birth of the U.S.A.

Many thanks to the folks at Bloomsbury Publishing for sending me a free copy of this book to review (My review did not have to be favorable)!

 

This book may also be purchased at Amazon.com and other bookstores

The Printer and the Preacher - By Randy Petersen

The Printer and the Preacher: Ben Franklin, George Whitefield, and the Surprising Friendship that Invented America by Randy Peterson is a book that attempts to explore the friendship of George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin and how that relationship affected the coming united American states.  I have read some biographies on Whitefield (Dallimore's) and knew of Franklin's correspondence with Whitefield, and thought that the topic of this book looked interesting. 

Sadly, this book did not satisfy my hopes.  First, though the author's writing style is not boring it is too unorganized for my taste.  I have read books before where the narrative goes back and forth through time and I know that this can be done in an interesting, yet still unconfusing way, but this book does not do it well.  On any given page, especially towards the first half of the book, one can be in Franklin's early life, then his later, or in Whitefield's early life, or his later life, then again in Whitefield's later life and then in Franklin's early life… and so on.  It felt as though one was in a defective time machine so that when you put one foot out in 1776 the machine goes crazy and you actually step out for a momentary glimpse of 1730 but ultimately  find yourself experiencing vertigo in 1765.  At least in my opinion that was how it seemed, perhaps others won't mind it, but I would have preferred a more steady chronological approach. 

And then, I thought that Petersen wrote a bit too flippantly, especially in regards to Franklin's wrong beliefs.  For a good deal of the book he seemed to be rather lighthearted about Franklin's rejection of the Gospel especially when writing about Franklin's perspective of morals and his piecing together his own form of religion.  Peterson does show his own Christian views at one point, harshly critiquing Franklin's thought that being saved by faith alone (without works) is not a Christian doctrine, "But he [Franklin] was still dead wrong.  It is certainly a 'Christian doctrine' that we are saved by faith alone and not by our deeds…"  But then he continues his account of their lives in care-free style that seems to push aside the importance of eternity, and the seriousness of Franklin's rejection of the Gospel.  I'm sure Peterson did not mean to do this, but that was how it came across to me.   

Other things bothered me as well, such as the author's harping on the emotional responses of the people towards Whitefield's messages and his emotional delivery of the truth.  The author makes  statements like this:  "Throughout his career, George was accused of over-emotionalizing the Gospel.  His dramatic antics got people so excited, they might agree to anything, or so the critics said.  But that was the whole point.  Whitefield knew that the Gospel broke into most peoples' lives through their emotions, not their minds…What they lacked, George felt, was a transformation of the heart - and that would best happen not through logical argumentation, but through an emotional appeal."  I may be wrong, but I don't ever remember that Whitfield put emotion above words and logical thinking, especially in regards to the Word of God.  And even if he did believe as the above statements say I would still have to flatly disagree.  The Bible doesn't say that faith comes from emotion, rather it states that faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Rom. 10:17).  It doesn't say that emotion is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, rather the Word of God has those attributes (Heb 4:12). Emotion is an effect but not the cause of the New Birth.   

And then the author uses other statements, like, "…about the same time the great reformers were crafting a new faith."  New? "Crafting"? Weren't they returning to the one and only Word of God?  And again he says, "Whitfield bought heavily into the Calvinist theology…"  I wouldn't use the term "bought into"…

So, to put my opinion simply: Petersen had too flippant a perspective of the history of these two men who both have eternal souls and whose beliefs about Who, and what life is really about, really did matter when it comes to where they would spend eternity.

I received a free review copy of this book from the Booklook blogger program in exchange for my review which did not have to be favorable.