ISBN: 1718873980
Special thanks to https://wisepathbooks.com/ for supplying a review copy of this book. –Booklight staff
There are not too many books that straddle the line between Christianity and mysticism that are able to negotiate the twists and turns the subject matter entails well. George MacDonald took an early swipe at the future genre in 1881 with this work.
It proves hard to categorize what the author did. There are plenty of allusions and symbolic meanings present in the volume. The quick storyline is that a young man inherits an estate that is on the verge of ruin in Scotland. This is far too simple of a reduction, however, of the rich layers present in this work.
Probably, it would be better to say that a young man learns what it means to mature into an adult spiritually while keeping the Christian teachings close at hand, as well as making sure the soul does not slip from him while balancing the demands placed upon him by the world.
The estate he is to inherit is curious and is not without its ghosts. The walls of the house speak of the ancient history of his family, but indeed also of his mother who the reader learns, has died earlier in his life. His father is a constant reminder of what it means to be noble and to stay meek. The other characters in the house help to tell Cosmo, the boy, about his past, and have key pieces of information about his future.
It is via a chance bad weather meeting that Cosmo meets Joan who is entangled with his life in several key ways and he in hers. While their initial meeting seems to have something romantic about it, there are other possibilities closer at home, and a large portion of the novel concerns itself with how the two reconcile their incipient feelings for one another.
There are, of course, massive doses of supernatural happenings throughout the work. The bulk of these could be summarized by saying God turns what seems to be meant toward misfortune toward good where the Warlock estate is concerned.
It is also curious that the book was named Castle Warlock with the obvious connotations that entails considering that the narrative of the book is very much how to be a good Christian. It is said by some sources that C.S. Lewis used this work to construct some of his other more famous novels. Indeed, there is the courting with the magical smacked up against the Christian as one often finds in his novels. While the two themes move fluidly enough between one another in a Scottish castle, it would require a place like Narnia for Lewis to make the confluence happen.
One difficulty in accessing this work is that the accents are authentic to Scotland. Indeed, there even exist alternative language versions written in Highland kinds of tongues or Scots-English. After awhile, it becomes easier to understand what is being said as the reader begins to develop the vocabulary meanings through context and repetition. Still, there are some key moments where the reader might not have everything said easily understood and these moments require a later clarification when they contain key pieces of plot.
This kind of work is not a modern undertaking in any sense of the word since the entirety of the story exists as a kind of parable as well as a tale. Still, there is a richness accessible to the determined reader that most modern literature cannot replicate. One could do worse than spend several evenings by the reading light decoding some Scottish turns-of-phrase.
978-1959666455
Special thanks to https://wisepathbooks.com/ for supplying a review copy of this book. –Booklight staff
“Old Grog”, the author of On Ruling, has undertaken a difficult task against the current political climate. He has attempted to weave a helpful narrative toward Christian men that acts as a beacon concerning masculinity and what it ought to look like under a relationship with the acceptance of Messiah as the cornerstone. In many ways, he has succeeded in this.
The book hopes to supplant any future books about Christian male leadership and notes, wryly, that most men that have many books on Christian leadership seem to be the worst at exhibiting it. There is a tongue-in-cheek method of relational tale-bearing that works concerning the tone of the thesis. Since the intended audience is mostly young men, this device is well-suited toward that goal.
The focal point of the exposition is the induction of men into a status that is referred to as a “viceroy”. A viceroy is defined, loosely for the purposes of this review, as an appointed ruler under a king to carry out certain duties necessary to the functioning of the kingdom. The King is then wisely referred to as the Messiah. This neatly sidesteps the problems inherent when believers think of themselves as Kings in the manner of Israel or lost tribes, but not as examples like David. Even with this language, though, there is a reminder that a ruler ought to be humble first and foremost in case anyone who begins to carry out the viceroy mentality begins to inflate their self-worth in a manner that might incur the wrath of the King of Kings.
Nonetheless, the comparison to what Kings do oftentimes makes the distinction fuzzy. While the work makes the concept of Kings in general a natural thing, sometimes Kings from the past are used as a reference point. (or at the very least, that is the inference) This has the unintended effect, possibly, of making the viceroy step into the shoes of a King, whether or not the author is intending for the viceroy to do so. This becomes highly important later when the reader is told about the behaviors Kings might exhibit–such as showing up unannounced and gathering resources and making alliances. These suggestions are made in terms of enlarging the dominion of God on the Earth, but for young men, as anyone can tell you, sometimes the nuance is lost.
Predictably, the book leans heavily toward what the behavior ought to be for the home, the wife, and having children. There are some hard-won pieces of advice present here. Certainly, the characteristic of having worked long in the business culture is evident. Generally speaking, it is probably good advice, although some of the examples used about vaccinations and being a pharmaceutical sales person are puzzling. What happens, for instance, when the King of Kings says that certain businesses, like the types mentioned in the book, are not working for Him?
Furthermore, the guidance the Messiah gave was to sell all possessions and follow Him in most circumstances and to share all possessions in common among the disciples. The model in this book does not incorporate that specific teaching which is a crucial one to understand properly.
There is an acknowledgement, obliquely, which underlies why this point bears emphasizing. The reader is told that fifty years ago a book like On Ruling would not need to exist since there was a common agreement on what a masculine role ought to be. The trouble, though, is that role is under assault because some of the lessons in this book were put into practice and not always under the Will of God. In the language of the book, “A whole lot of hay was cut”, but the collective values were wrong. Many viceroys were mistaken.
A guiding lesson is given concerning how these values were corrupt enough to warrant this book’s existence. A young man who comes from a home where he has “two mothers” impregnates a girl in college. He is, of course, fearful, but his problem is what this book is trying to address–namely that he has no idea what a Father is because he never had one. An immediate lesson is offered to this young man in the form of responsibility for his new family, consequences, and new priorities.
A most interesting part concerns the criticism that the advice given might turn the home and family into an idol since that is the clear priority throughout the reading. The author takes a kind of “the ends justify the means” outlook here in that the children produced from this implemented strategy will more than make up for any suspicion that the home is an idol. Whether or not this succeeds as an argument depends on whether a person agrees that the children ought to be emphasized in the way this book purports.
The biggest visible stumbling block in the arguments expounded concerns the choice of the word “Kings” and the monarch allusions. In the end of days, there comes a personage, it is told, who comes in the guise of a King. Many young men, it seems to the reader, do not have a problem with being royals. What they have trouble with, though, is submission of their “royal impulses” to the Higher Will–and certainly the consequences that come when that fails to happen appropriately. The biggest ill concerns the quality of restraint more so than the characteristic of regal identity. Of course, “Old Grog” might be seeing an angle the reviewer is missing. Sometimes one has to “build up” before one can “tear down”.
On the other hand, it is also told that Israel is eventually to become a nation of Priest-Kings. “Old Grog” does not take this stance, but rather emphasizes the more Pauline position that he is speaking as a kind of “grafted-in” pagan which many Christians likely relate to. Perhaps this work is framed from that vantage point, although if it is, it did not seem to state that point plainly enough as to make an impression on the memory after reading it.
As a composite, the work is an interesting read with a lot of life advice from the aspect of a young man who is going to start a family and will be out in the working world. On the other hand, depending on how close the Kingdom is to arrival, this might be unnecessary advice. The world is changing faster than most people can keep a fix on. The nature of work and how faith is arranged in society has changed drastically in the last five years. Still, the qualities “Old Grog” puts forth will be important, regardless of the backdrop in which they exist. The work undertaken here is pertinent for men of faith to read, and men in general can derive value from considering the ideas put forth.
If you are a young man, this book will make you think about what you want to do. If you are of middle age, it will make you think about what you are doing. If you are an older man the book makes you consider the kind of advice you would give to men younger than you in light of your life and spiritual growth. Wherever it is you are or were, it will make you think about the definition of what it means to be male and what expressions that ought to take with submission to Messiah as an intrinsic emphasis.
978-0465030095
Mark Bradley decided to take on a difficult task. The story of Duncan Lee is not one that most authors would want to tackle, since the subject of the work could be easily characterized as an unrepentant traitor for communist Russia under Stalin.
Lee would dispute this, and so would Lee’s family. Probably, the rationale Lee would offer, as per the framework of the book, was that the goal was to defeat Hitler at any cost. Lee saw Stalin and Russia as key to this. This, however, of course overlooks the fact that Lee was a communist because he liked the ideology of communism.
The way Bradley tells the narrative makes chronological sense. The basic divisions are the early life of Lee, pre-war, the college life of Lee, where he begins his communist journey, the war life of Lee, where he becomes an OSS officer but also a supplier of information to Russia, and the fallout later life of Lee, where the consequences under McCarthy begin to corner Lee.
The most interesting part of the story concerns how Lee deceived himself. He starts off clearly as a Russian spy, but then later after the charges begin to be made concerning his activities, he reverses his role and goes to China to support an airline industry with strong opponents of communism. His job, with this specific airline, is to resist the advancing Mao in China.
So, the question becomes who, exactly, is Duncan Lee? His family had been in America for some time, and was related to Robert E. Lee. His immediate family, in the form of his father, was an evangelical who went to China to witness for the gospel there. Bradley juxtaposes this action against Lee who inherits this spiritual zeal, but uses it for the “religious” purposes of communism and advancing its goals.
Being part of the intellectual class, Lee heads off to Oxford and finds a future wife there who is more radical for communism than Lee. This serves to galvanize his early devotion.
Later, during the war, the emergent OSS under Donovan taps on Lee to hold an important position inside the organization. Since Lee has been rubbing shoulders with members of CPUSA–the Communist Party of the USA–it does not take long for Russian intelligence to find a suitable handler for him in the form of Mary Price who believes spying for Russia is a form of fighting fascism. The way she recruits Lee is possibly one of the oldest in the book–through sexual seduction in part. Lee refuses to give Price any written information, however, and makes her memorize what he has to say so that there is no paper trail. This proves to be a later boon to Lee.
Lee is not a very good spy for Russia since he refuses to do what they want him to do and he continues to do things his own way. He also does not have the required emotional stamina, and soon begins to have a kind of fearful paranoia run his life. Since his treachery level was so high, one concludes this is probably Lee’s guilty conscience more than any external threat, although the two do blend together on several occasions.
Once Russia aligns as an ally of the US, Stalin uses the new scenario to his advantage since he knows the US does not want to try any specific Soviet spies it might find in its ranks due to upsetting Russia and having a situation unfold whereby Russia might withhold some of its manpower from the war effort. It is, ironically, at this point, that Lee begins to become more paranoid since two sides which were not originally speaking to one another begin to have more communication and understanding of who is supporting whom in the spy world.
When the war finally ends, Lee, through the machinations of the person who replaces Mary Price, an Elizabeth Bentley, faces whistle-blowing charges. Bentley begins to not like the direction communism is taking for a variety of reasons, and for her own protection from Russia decides to venture to the FBI and unmask her network of Russian spies. The FBI of course, does not initially trust or believe her fully, but it puts enough pressure on Lee to make him wary. It is not long after this that he is off to China to assist the airline that the CIA saves which is called CAT in its pro Chiang Kai-shek activities which includes supplying his army and ultimately his ex-filtration to Taiwan. This provides Lee an entirely different narrative, which he uses in the coming trials which are in part a result from Bentley’s admissions–performed by the House Un-American Committee.
Eventually, Lee is off to Bermuda for his new job with an insurance company, where he faces more trouble in the form of gaining necessary passports and being summoned back to the US to face further questioning because of Bentley.
Here, the narrative plays out to its ultimate conclusion of Lee as an older man, and what he, in his own opinion, thinks about his life. Of course, true to the form of everything else Lee has done in his life, his conclusions are myopic and flawed. The reader is in the best position to make the judgment.
Bradley tries to play this story down the center and uses phraseology that condemns communism at times, and patriotism at other times. He does mention, by the end of the book, that he is a former CIA employee and that the CIA had to read all the material and approve it. Perhaps this plays into the case of Duncan Lee, and perhaps not. Perhaps Bradley, like Lee, felt a need to atone for something, and so wrote this book and worked with the Lee family to produce it. None of this sounds like an easy or delightful task. The story, for whatever reason, had to be told.
The question, like the life of Duncan Lee, is why?