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War and grace

Unsung heroes

WAR AND GRACE
By Don Stephens
Evangelical Press. 288 pages. £8.95
ISBN 0 85234 594 1

It is fitting that in this year of the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII this book should be published. For many of us who have known the author a long time we have waited for its appearance with great expectations. It is a super book.

It tells the stories of 13 people caught up in the great conflict and how God dealt with them in grace and power. Some of these tales have appeared in book form before. But some are so marvellous and inspiring that one feels it can only have been because of our society’s biased secularism that many of them have been forgotten or never brought to public attention.

Here we read of Paul Schneider, the German pastor who opposed Nazism and preached Christ through the bars of his prison cell, until starved and beaten, he died in July 1939. There are accounts of Sir William Dobbie the governor who led the defence of Malta, of Ernest Gordon who saw the true miracle which occurred in the prison camps of river Kwai as soldiers turned to Christ, and of Johanna-Ruth Dobschiner, a Jewish woman who became a Christian leading a charmed life in avoiding arrest by the Nazis in Holland. Did you know that Mitso Fuchida, the chief pilot in the attack on Pearl Harbour became a Christian? Have you ever heard the true story of the man behind ‘Q’ in the James Bond films, or of not the Scarlet Pimpernel, but the real life ‘Tartan Pimpernel’?

For many years all these stories and more used to keep the Bible class at Belvidere Road Church in Liverpool transfixed as Don told what God had done. Now they are available to all. The author has pursued much personal research and been in correspondence over the years with many of the people whose lives he gives us. Furthermore, at the end of each chapter, there are notes which enable the reader to follow up on other resources if they want to find out more. This is good biography with a wonderful spiritual edge. The book is easy to read and will warm your heart and stimulate your faith.

John Benton