Take Time To Be Holy: 365 Daily Inspirations To Bring You Closer To God, by Samuel Logan Brengle, edited by Bob Hostetler

[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Tyndale Publishers in exchange for an honest review.]

At the heart of this book, which is a collection of short materials culled from the body of work of a notable 19th century Salvation Army clergyman (called officers in that particular religion) is a set of tensions. These tensions are at the heart of the lives of many Christians, struggling to define key aspects of the faith while recognizing as well that some matters are beyond our own knowledge. They represent the language we all use within our particular faith traditions (and this book is full of Salvation Army jargon that the editor sometimes explains for those of us who are not insiders in that tradition), the struggle between being committed and faithful soldiers of God who are nevertheless to remain loving and gentle pilgrims on this earth, the knowledge that our lives will be filled with difficulties and struggles but also having the faith to be patient and persistent anyway in the expectation of deliverance, in the fact that it seeks to balance the concerns of the head and heart, however unsuccessfully, and in that it struggles to find a balance between a sort of holiness that is rare and therefore special but that is also “mainstream.”

These tensions are most evident when one reads the book fairly quickly, as I did. If one takes this book as a devotional (read, it should be noted, for a solar calendar as opposed to God’s calendar), the repetitions and tensions of this work are likely to be less apparent, as these devotionals are like the short blog entries of a prolific writer, commonly referring to the same incidents and the same people and even the same scriptures over and over again with little depth, but with striking and brief insights that are supposed to provoke reflection and prayer and meditation. These limitations are not necessarily present in the original works these meditations were taken from, but are a reflection of the form of devotional that this book takes. At its best, this book will provide food for thought for a believer as well as encourage those readers who found the content appealing enough to investigate the body of works that this author wrote almost 150 years ago and that still remain relevant within the tradition of the Salvation Army.

As is true with any writer, Brengle has a set of interests that he returns to over and over again. Notable among them is an eccentric view of holiness and sanctification by which he tries to resolve the tension between the salvation of a believer upon confession of belief, repentance, and baptism as well as the process of spiritual growth in which a believer’s life and attitudes are transformed through action and a regenerated will into the image and likeness of God. As might be expected for a believer who is firmly in the Evangelical wing of Hellenistic Christianity, he seeks to use unbiblical language like the triple blessing to describe his beliefs in a form that cares more about philosophy than about scriptural veracity. Likewise, his reflections are generally shallow surface impressions, but this may be an aspect of the selections chosen and not necessarily reflective of the entire body of work that he produced.

That said, the concerns of the author are worthy ones, including the Christian walk, maintaining faith through trials and difficulties while remaining at peace, the unpardonable sin, the balance between right thought/belief and right action, the role of the believer in salvation (here the author shares my committed Arminian perspective), as well as a concern for family and community and service to others. The author comes across as a noble and candid person who wrestles honestly and openly with faith in action. Despite my disagreements with him in certain aspects of his belief, and in the fact that his strident tone and confident assertion of knowing the hearts and spiritual state of others seems unwarranted, this is a book that is full of thought-provoking reflections that will hopefully allow a thoughtful believer of any Christian background to go beyond the insight of the author. One notable example of this is the fact that the author receives a great deal of spiritual insights on the Sabbath according to the author’s own reflections but appears to show no recognition of Jesus Christ as the Lord of the Sabbath, nor a respect for God’s commanded assembly on the seventh day. Nobody’s perfect, though. Also notable is the fact that the editor uses a variety of translations for the verses that form the basis of this devotional, even if most of the verses are familiar ones, and some of them are interpreted in a way that is entirely contrary to the context those verses are a part of (such as viewing the Israelites as mighty in faith in the Wilderness and viewing the call of Jonah in Jonah 1:1 as being the sign of Jonah’s faithfulness as a prophet).