Posts by Susan Verstraete

Posts by Susan Verstraete

What You Need to Know About The Da Vinci Code

Do you know someone who has read The Da Vinci Code? If you don’t by now, you probably will. Dan Brown’s suspense novel has been on the NY Times best-sellers list for over 3 years, and, according to Brown’s website, "has become one of the most widely read books of all time."1 A quick search of a national bookseller’s website yielded no less than 15 books written about this novel, and a major motion picture based on the book is…

Book Review: A Thousand Miles of Miracle

Book by A. E. Glover, Christian Focus, 2000 They were locked in a tiny, bug-infested jail in inland China. The heat inside was suffocating, and the doors and windows were sealed tight by the guards. Outside their prison, crowds of people called for their death, rioting until late in the night. At daybreak, it began again. “Mie yang,” they shouted, “Destroy the foreigner!” Archie and Flora prayed for a miracle.   It was 1900, the third year of worsening drought and famine…

By Faith Alone: The Conversion of Martin Luther

It was the moment he had been waiting for. His father was in the audience watching, as were his fellow monks. It was time for Martin to offer his first mass, and he was overwhelmed with the solemnity of the event. He led the congregation, saying, “We offer unto Thee, the living, the true, the eternal God.” Suddenly Martin froze. He couldn’t go on. He later wrote: “At these words I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I thought to myself,…

Mingling Groans of Pain and Songs of Hope : Charles Haddon Spurgeon on Depression

It’s a good thing he wasn’t born in the 20th century. Many believing brothers and sisters would label his tendency to melancholy sinful, or evidence of a lack of self-discipline, or even the result of shallow faith. A psychologist would probably send him away with a prescription and a self-help book with twelve easy steps to overcome depression. But Charles Haddon Spurgeon, perhaps the greatest preacher of the 19th century, had a different attitude toward his affliction. Spurgeon knew “by…

The Reluctant Mother: Amy Carmichael

We can’t always identify life-changing moments as they occur. When a little Indian girl named Preena crawled into Amy Carmichael’s lap and called her “Amma” (or “mother” in Tamil) for the first time, neither of them could have known that this simple act would change both their lives forever, and the lives of hundreds of others. Amy Carmichael was born in Ireland in 1867, the oldest of seven children. She was a feisty child whose longing for excitement often got…

Brian Fleming’s The God Who Wasn’t There A Critical Review

Written, Directed and Narrated by Brian Fleming Beyond Belief Media 2005 A friend of mine is fond of quoting the axiom, "Consequences have ideas." That certainly seems to prove true in Brian Fleming’s documentary diatribe against Christianity, "The God Who Wasn’t There." The 39-year-old Fleming, who describes his parents as "typical, non-Bible-thumping Methodists,"1 attended an evangelical parochial school in California as a child. There, he says, "I was born again at least three times, I think."2 Fleming describes his school…

John & Stasi Eldredge’s Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul — A Critical Review

Eldredge, John and Stasi, Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, Published by Thomas Nelson, Nashville 2005, 225 pages.  Introduction In the introduction to Captivating, Stasi Eldredge writes, “As a new Christian, the first book I picked up to read on godly femininity I threw across the room. I never picked it up again.” Can you identify with her feelings? I certainly can. Over the years I’ve read dozens of worthless books aimed toward Christian women. Some appealed to…