Have you no scar? | Paul Helm

One of the great pleasures of reading is to come across a book which, quite unexpectedly, puts into words things that the reader believes, but which he has never thought out for himself.

A recent example of this, in my case, is the reading of Gaius Davies's 'Genius, Grief and Grace' (2nd edition, Christian Focus Publications, 2001). This book has already been favourably reviewed in EN (April 2002) by Peter Comont. But its interest and importance merit further reflection.

Genius, Grief and Grace was, in its first edition, a set of nine, chapter-length studies of Christian leaders - Luther, Bunyan, Cowper, Lord Shaftesbury, Christina Rossetti, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Amy Carmichael, C.S. Lewis, J.B. Phillips. Dr. Davies has added, in this new edition, chapters on Frances Ridley Havergal and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The author brings a life-time of experience in psychiatry to focus on the various personality types exemplified in this list, and he draws attention to the influence of early upbringing on the development of particular traits of character.

Biography

The reading of biography, the stories of past Christians, is a part of church history. Such reading is of tremendous importance for the Christian, because it gives or reinforces the Christian's sense of identity. It helps us to resist the modernist tendency in our thinking, that of supposing that we or our generation are unique, uniquely blessed or uniquely cursed. It lends perspective. It counters cynicism and the threat of depression brought on by a sense of isolation. It emphasises human individuality, and what can be achieved or suffered in Christ's name.

But should it do more? Let's distinguish between the biography of Christians, and Christian biography. The biography of a Christian might be expected to re-tell, fairly and accurately and sympathetically what he/she did and suffered, just as any biography of anyone ought. There is a genre of writing known as biography, and biographies of Christians are examples of that genre.

But, I shall argue (with Dr. Davies's help and guidance) that the biography of a Christian is not necessarily an instance of a Christian biography. For a Christian biography should exhibit or express not only accuracy, detail and sympathy for the subject, but a distinctively Christian outlook. What is this outlook? The Christian life should be retold in the light of that view of human nature highlighted and taught in Scripture.

Flawed heroes

Often, and sometimes to our embarrassment, Scripture draws attention to the failings of the heroes of faith. Job bridled, Abraham lied, Jacob cheated, Elijah was depressed, David lusted, Peter denied, Thomas doubted, Paul failed. What does this show? It shows that Scripture does not idolise these heroes, and strongly suggests that we are not to either. It underlines what, following Paul, Augustine of Hippo, the Protestant Reformers and their evangelical successors taught, almost to a man, that the Christian life is a life-long war of flesh against spirit, not an untroubled advance to sinless perfection. It is in this spirit that Gaius Davies draws our attention to (for example) Bunyan's obsessive perfectionism, to Shaftesbury's paranoia, to Cowper's depressive tendencies, to Amy Carmichael's histrionics, and to Lloyd-Jones's need always to be in control.

How often is church history (of which biography is an essential part) presented as if it were a record of the uninterrupted progress of the gospel. Particularly the success and the rightness of our own particular sect or clan or party within the church. The account of the interruptions of such progress, the occurrence of failure or setback, is told as if it were due solely to the efforts of our enemies, or of The Enemy. But this is history as propaganda. We know, in fact, that the story of church history, just like our own lives, is not like this: it's as much the record of weakness, of the influence of obsessions and of the quirks of personality, of impatience, unbelief, disaffection, love of money, love of ease.

This failure to be honest is made worse when the lives of our heroes are used to teach uplifting lessons, to promote and enforce a moral ideal. (For all its biblical strengths Calvinism, unlike Lutheranism, has the tendency to decay into moralism and legalism. And Anglo-American evangelicals are strongly influenced by this aspect of Calvinism more than they know). But church history, Christian biography, should above all things tell us the truth, paint an honest picture, warts and all.

One of the most welcome features of Dr. Davies's book is his refusal to speculate about the lives of those he writes about, but to base his evaluations on the 'public record' of known facts. Biography written in this way, Christian biography, should help us to see the centrality of the cross, and of the grace of God at work in a life, grace that overcomes weakness and that utilises the craggy corners of a personality.

Grace and personality

Why should Christian biography avoid these two fallacies, the perfectionist fallacy, and the moralist fallacy? Why should it avoid telling a life as if it was one of unstoppable triumph, a life that offers a template for our own lives? Certainly not to do down the great leaders of the Church, but rather to show them in their true light. But how may drawing attention to defects of personality and areas of failure, do this? Isn't this a case of the Christian bowing to the standards of the world, in this case to the debunking tendency that has been so strong a feature of modern biography since Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians (1918)?

Not at all. In fact, the complete reverse. Biography written in this way, Christian biography, will illustrate the biblical teaching that God's strength is made perfect in weakness, that when a person is weak, then is he strong. It will underline the fact that we must through much tribulation enter the kingdom. It will do justice to the uniqueness of each personality. We all may find ourselves with thorns in the flesh. None of us ought to call another man master. Isn't this the authentic New Testament, indeed biblical, view of human nature, to emphasise that all Christians suffer from sin to their dying day? Such suffering frequently finds public expression of the sort that a biographer must take note of, and that this takes different forms in each of us? We all have phobias and fads which are our characters. Some of what warps our personalities, but which also makes us the people we are, is inherited, and some of it is acquired, particularly in early childhood. We all may be affected by physical ailments as well as by obsessional tendencies. There is not a special elite group of heroes (equivalent to what the Roman Catholic Church calls 'saints') who experience God's grace differently, but we are all similarly broken by sin. Is this not what the New Testament teaches?

The biographer may lead us to see that sharp corners of personality, inherited weakness, failures in upbringing, make possible achievements which would seem to be impossible in any one built differently. In other words, it is one thing to draw attention to some defect in order to help to explain a person's greatness, or weakness, and to highlight God's grace in that life. It is quite another thing to focus on that defect in order to explain away this influence. It is another great merit of Dr. Davies's approach that he draws attention to 'grief' not in order to eliminate the operation of the grace of God in a life, but to highlight it.

In several of the cases examined by Gaius Davies it seems that the very personality defects can almost be seen as 'gifts' without which the accomplishments of these Christian leaders would have been impossible. God in his grace may take our oddities and without obliterating them, use them for the good of his church. But perhaps, in some instances, they may be used to show the opposite, that a person would have been more effective as a Christian and as a Christian leader had he or she not had the particular obsessions that he was cursed with.

Finally, reading the lives of the saints through the lens provided by Dr. Davies offers another benefit. Seeing lives in this way, and being reminded of the biblical emphasis, may enable us to gain a degree of self-knowledge and know-ledge of God that leads to an acceptance of oneself, to be at ease with oneself. We may come to realise that one's own personality is also a gift from God. Such an awareness can curb the longing to be someone other than oneself, with the self-loathing and paralysis that this may bring.

So if you have not read 'Genius, Grief and Grace', then I suggest that you do so without delay. It's an insightful, enthralling read, a book with the potential to strengthen and to liberate.