Let me begin with a caveat: I have no idea if R.C. Sproul really advanced the argument above. It’s entirely possible that someone else pasted it atop his photo and stuck his name in the attribution spot and sent it on its way to unsuspecting, Calvinist-leaning Christians. In turn, these folks eagerly passed it on, thinking that it makes an air-tight case for their chosen philosophy.
 
Except that it does no such thing. In point of fact, it is a totally irrelevant argument, based as it is on an underlying straw man – a logical fallacy that purports to refute an opposing argument, even though the opponent never said any such thing.
 
I’ve studied Calvinism in depth, and I have never heard anyone but a Calvinist advance the argument addressed in this meme, and then only to knock it down. I have never heard an anti-Calvinist suggest that Calvinism is wrong because it’s unjust. Not once.
 
Maybe Calvinism’s opponents would be reduced to such irrelevance if there were no solid biblical arguments against the philosophy. But there are plenty. Consider just a handful:
​

• God’s will is salvation for all (see, e.g., 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, Romans 11:32, 2 Corinthians 5:19)
• God provides for salvation for all (1 John 2:2, John 6:40, 1 Timothy 2:6, Hebrews 2:9, Isaiah 53:6, Romans 5:18, 8:29)
• God gives man the choice to believe or not (John 3:16, Acts 13:46)
• God draws all men (John 12:32)
• God enables man to respond (John 1:9, Mark 16:15-16, Acts17:30,16:31)
• Men drawn do refuse (Romans 10:21)
• God commands preaching gospel to all (Mark 16:15)

 
And that’s just the start. If you are among those who’ve been knocked off the rails of sound Biblicism by the use of words like “elect” and “chosen,” hold on! Next time you come across a form of these words, ask yourself:

1. Elect or chosen for what purpose?
2. Elect or chosen on what basis?

 
If you are being honest with yourself and refuse to go beyond what is written, you will NEVER come up with “for salvation” as the answer to #1. And you will NEVER answer #2 with “because it was God’s good pleasure to save or condemn this person.”
 
I got this meme from a friend who’d received it as a “told you so!” email from a Calvinist acquaintance. My friend knew it was wrong, but she wasn’t sure exactly why – this in spite of the fact that she’s been an ardent Bible student for over half a century.
 
And that’s what makes straw-man arguments so dangerous: Because they’re unbiblical to begin with, they’re impossible to refute directly with a verse or two or three from the Bible. Which means some people are going to fall for them.
 
Do straw-man practitioners know what they’re doing? In other words, is the deception deliberate?
 
Beats me. I certainly don’t know their hearts. 
 
But I do know that the Bible warns us repeatedly to be wary of such devices. As the apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 2:8, "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ."
 
There are many other deceptive techniques being used to battle biblical truth today – including the ever-popular “Has God indeed said?” introduced by Satan himself in Genesis 3. But the straw-man argument is one of the most common, perhaps because it’s so easy to use, and can send true Bereans on a fruitless search for passages to counter it.
 
So use caution. Don’t let yourself become the straw man’s next victim!

I'm participating in a 21-Day Pardon Challenge being sponsored by A Prisoner's Pardon, the ministry of my friend Michelle Jackson -- Michi J.  Day 2's Challenge is "Forgive Yourself," something that is often easier said than done. In thinking back over some of the transgressions I consider my most unforgivable, I was reminded once again of the one detailed in the following excerpt from my memoir. Don't know if I'll ever be able to move past this slam against my dear mother, undoubtedly the best mom ever. But today I will be trying.

If you'd like to join in on this challenge, it's not too late. Visit this page to sign up. There's no cost or obligation, and there's a good chance you'll find it life-changing!

Then, if you're on Facebook, join the conversation here. 

In the meantime, here's the story of the offense I can't seem to get over. I hasten to add that this occurred before I encountered, and received, the Lord Jesus Christ.


Perhaps the worst incident of all occurred on the Christmas Eve before she got sick. I was taking her back to the nursing home after a present-opening night at our house, with both my sisters and their families and even a visiting dog to chase my cats.

My mother had clearly had a nice time with us; she had been all smiles, all evening. And then, alone with me in my rusting Chevy Blazer, barreling up nearly deserted Barker Road, she sighed.

“I hate having to go back to the old ladies’ home,” she said. “I have that awful aide tonight, the one who’s so rough with me, and –"

“I can’t believe you!” I snapped, looking at her with my most outraged expression, sure that she was not-so-subtly hinting that she would like to come live with us. “You’re sweetness and light all night long, until you’re alone with me – and then all you can do is complain!"

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her look so sad.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “It’s just that you’re the only one I can talk to about these things."

“Well, I can’t do anything about it,” I said, calmer now and already feeling guilty. I knew I’d need a good hour or two to think this one through until I found a way to justify my outburst. “Anyway, if you would just be a little nicer to this aide, maybe she’d be nicer to you."

As it turned out, I never was able to justify what I’d said to her that night. I wept over it more than once, and to this day cringe whenever I remember it. I think I see it as a symbol of all the pain I had caused her over our lives together, of all the times I’d trashed the wonderful things God had given me.

There were other such incidents throughout my life, most directed at other people – scores of them, no doubt. I guess it doesn’t matter that I’ve forgotten the details. What matters is that it doesn’t have to happen again ...

And yet, amazing God, He has seen my contrite heart and forgiven me even for this.

And more: As Isaac Watts wrote in his 1707 hymn “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed?”:
 
Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

(From Heaven Without Her, pages 199-200)

In the early 1980s, I had an ugly run-in with truth, thanks to a boyfriend who was completely unfamiliar with the concept. Here's how that experience impacted my quest for the ultimate, absolute truths that govern our existence.

I spent the next two decades operating with a truth detector that worked only intermittently, when I really wanted it to. Which means I spent a fair share of my life being dead wrong.

The 1995 O. J. Simpson case was a good example. My interest in pro football was skyrocketing that year, as the Packers climbed into the ranks of the elite teams, and O. J. was a true NFL hero. I didn’t want him to be guilty of murdering his ex-wife. So I eagerly embraced the contention that, unlike the bloodbath at the crime scene itself, there were only a few drops of blood in his Bronco. I agreed that those drops had undoubtedly been planted, perhaps by a corrupt or jealous policeman.

I clung to these notions, using them to screen the rest of the evidence. When it came time to look at the big picture, I donned my Agatha Christie lenses, absolutely certain that the solution could not be as obvious as it looked. I reasoned that no one could have been as stupid as O. J. would’ve had to have been to commit this terrible crime. I concluded that there was another killer on the loose – perhaps his son – and that O. J. had either been expertly framed or was sacrificing himself for his kid. I made no secret of my relief when the not-guilty verdict was delivered.

In February of 2000, lying on a beach in Jamaica with my anti-O. J. golfing girlfriends, oblivious to the cancer growing in my mother’s belly, I read lead prosecutor Marcia Clark’s book Without a Doubt. And discovered that I had done quite a remarkable job of closing my eyes to an entire evidence-room full of indisputable facts.

When I sheepishly admitted my error to my girlfriends, they crowed.

“Ha!” said the one I knew best. “I told you so! I TOLD you! Next time, maybe you’ll listen to me!”

It was then that I decided never again to let my emotions and biases distort objective truth. It was a major departure for someone who had always been ruled by her feelings; Marcia Clark had done what multiple leakers and liars had failed to do.

                                                                                  
                                                       *  *  *  *  *

Perhaps not so coincidentally, my resolve to search out the unvarnished truth would be tested just a few months later, as I began investigating my mother’s faith.

Once again, I was being forced to consider the possibility that something I had long refused to believe might actually be true.

In the very early going, I kept stumbling over my virtual certainty that my mother’s religion was ugly and prudish and intolerant; that it was arrogant beyond belief with its claims of absolute and exclusive truth; and that it starred a Creator who, if He existed, took great pleasure in giving His creatures good things like food and drink and money and sex and then telling them “Hands off!”

These were among the reasons I had developed my own little theological system over the decades – one that could be adjusted whenever necessary to accommodate some fun idea put forth in a conversation or book or even a movie like the too-cool afterlife fantasy “What Dreams May Come,” with its resident-run, “they all lived happily ever after” portrayal of heaven.

Even though I was sort of leaning towards the existence of a God by the mid-1990s, my personal theology certainly didn’t depend on such a being. Mine was a passive-tense theology: We were put here to reach our full potential as human beings.  We would be judged based on our characters and good deeds. Those who were allowed into heaven (if it existed) would include just about everyone except Adolf Hitler and Christian fundamentalists.

If I didn’t want to address the issue of who, if anyone, would do the putting, judging and allowing, well, that was my business; it was my afterlife scenario, after all. And it was just as valid as anyone else’s, because no one could possibly know for sure what happens to us after we die. No one.
 
                                                                                 
                                                       *  *  *  *  *
 
During that tumultuous decade, I even toyed occasionally with the flip side of the “can’t know” coin – the idea that absolute truth doesn’t even exist, no matter what the ancient Greeks may have thought.

But then in early 2001 I read an interesting refutation of that idea. It went something like this:

To say that absolute truth doesn’t exist is to make a statement of absolute truth.
If it’s true, it’s false.

And so it breaks the law of non-contradiction.

I thought about that long and hard and could find no way around it. Absolute truth was apparently alive and well in our 21st century world and apparently always would be.

It was a very reassuring conclusion.

--Heaven Without Her, pages 93-95

I first blogged on this topic back in 2014. Until last night, I hadn't heard anyone in the mainstream media address even its purely secular aspects. Allow me to toss it out there again in the hope that some investigative journalist with both curiosity and influence will pick up on it.

Am I crazy? Or is just about everyone ignoring the most obvious potential cause of mass murder in this country?

The “experts” are focusing on suspects from violent video games to the NRA, from bad nutrition to “systemic” failure, whatever that means. 

“Clearly,” they say, “these young men were very troubled. Why were they not [check one] locked up/denied access to weapons/kept away from rap music?  They were all recognized as mentally ill, and almost all were on, or had been on, psychiatric medications. What went wrong?”

There’s an elephant in this room, one that’s so obvious that it cannot be a simple oversight.

Read the above clause again: “almost all were on, or had been on, psychiatric medications.”

Hello? Investigative reporters? See the common thread here?

Good grief! Are pharmaceutical companies such important advertisers that you can’t possibly name their products as suspects?

The FDA certainly recognizes their dangers. Just about every psych drug’s advertisements include warnings along the lines of, “if you feel like offing yourself while taking this drug, please do let your doctor know.”

The potentially explosive nature of these pharmaceuticals is in fact well known. That includes the increased suicide risk associated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRRIs) like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil -- the most common class of antidepressants.

(Note to investigative reporters: Almost all of these murderers conclude their rampages by committing suicide. See a pattern here? Notice any connection?)

What's more, we mustn't be comforted by the assertion that “so-and-so had stopped taking his meds.” He may well have done so, but reports like this one point out that stopping SRRIs can increase the risk of suicide in children and young adults. Other reports document a slew of other nasty side effects, including anxiety, agitation, extreme restlessness, depression, mood swings, irritability and aggression.

Hello? Sound like feelings that a mass murderer might experience?

Why is no one talking about this? 

Perhaps it would be helpful to consider what American society did about such problems in the days before psychiatry – days when, not so incidentally, mass murder and crippling depression were largely unknown.

Just think about a few of the possibilities.

• Except for the privileged, people worked long, hard days and came home to clean up, do their chores, eat, and sleep. Yes, even children, until the government stepped in with child labor laws to “protect” them.

• Except for the most well (sic) educated, most people believed in God. Their kids learned about the Bible not only in church but in the classroom. They learned that it was wrong to engage in things like ingratitude, sex outside of marriage and coveting others’ goods. They were told that these sins were punishable in this life and, without Christ, in the next. These truths were common knowledge until the government stepped in to “protect” schoolchildren from the Bible.

• Except for the hardest hearted, most people understood that they were not personally the center of the universe, and that they should put others ahead of themselves. This kept things civil until the government stepped in proffering all kinds of riches, insisting, “Nonsense – it is all about you!” 

We could go on, noticing that most teens before the advent of psychiatry were treated like little adults rather than adolescents. They had responsibilities, and were not allowed to run wild. And if they did in spite of their parents’ best efforts, they had to face the consequences.  

They were not protected by the law from parental discipline, or from the biblical warning that to “spare the rod [is to] spoil the child.”

They were not wrapped in cotton wads of pharmaceuticals to mute the trials that might otherwise set them on the right path not only today, but for all eternity.  

They were instead beneficiaries of the principles expressed in chapter 12 of the New Testament book of Hebrews: “’My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;  for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’  If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?  But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.”

Translation: the chastening of the Lord is good for everyone – including young people. If you’re not being disciplined, in fact, you are not His child. 

Consider what that might mean for one’s prospects in this life, and – far more important – for all eternity.

These are not entirely new problems. What is new is how defenseless we have become today, how incapable we are of dealing with them, thanks at least in part to a government and a culture that insist we handle “sensitive” children with kid gloves.

And we may be facing exponentially worse problems in the future, not in spite of but possibly because of the drugs that the psychiatric industry claims are the solution.

What I want to know is why no one is talking about any of this. My suspicions may turn out to be wrong; but I am not wrong about the elephant in the room. 

Why is the most obvious suspect being completely ignored?

Okay, so you hate cigarettes. You want them banned everywhere, including on the street and in the wide open country. You applaud employers who fire employees caught smoking in their own homes. After all, "science" has assured you that even a whiff of second-hand smoke will kill you!

Not so fast. Three decades ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the largest long-term second-hand-smoke study ever done. The upshot? Second-hand smoke not only does NOT seem to cause anyone any harm; it actually seems to reduce the chances of getting lung cancer for some of its "victims," like the wives of smokers.

That study received almost no coverage in the U.S., and the politically correct, pure-of-lung powers-that-be quickly forced WHO to bury it. Ditto for a number of smaller studies that have been conducted since then. Good luck trying to find any trace of them on the internet today.

But in 2013 a new study was reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. This account admitted there is no apparent connection between second-hand smoke and lung cancer. No connection. And it actually got some attention in U.S. media such as Forbes. One epidemiologist dared to ask if it wasn't time for an honest conversation about the evidence; according to columnist Jacob Sullum, he was "frustrated by the willingness of so many anti-tobacco activists and public health officials to overlook or minimize the weakness of the scientific case that secondhand smoke causes fatal illnesses such as lung cancer and heart disease."

So here's my question for you: Does the fact that "science" has fibbed about this issue (for at least three decades) disturb you at all? Does it make you doubt its assertions in other areas -- say, just for instance, that evolution is "fact," as nasty little atheist scientist Richard Dawkins insists?

There are interesting parallels here, strange as it may seem -- because the evidence against evolution, and in favor of biblical creation, is truly overwhelming. And yet we are told that the majority of scientists, and an intellectually superior minority of laymen, are convinced that evolution is fact and the Bible is nothing more than myth.

In both cases, there seems to be an appalling lack of interest in the truth.

Does it matter? Aren't cigarettes bad? Isn't the Bible for fools?

I don't know about cigarettes, having smoked my last one more than 20 years ago. But I do know about the Bible. Its exhaustively documented scientific truth is 100% accurate, even though it contradicts evolution theory from start to finish. Yet its writers could not have known any of these things apart from divine inspiration.

That means that we can also trust what the Bible's writers tell us about eternal life, and how to find it. We can logically heed their warnings against believing "science so-called," including the apostle Paul's admonition in 1 Timothy 6: "Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge." And we can safely ignore the "No God! No heaven!" rantings of scientists like Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens (who now, I might add, knows how wrong he was).

The truth is, scientists are as deception-prone as the rest of us. They are just as susceptible to the herd mentality as any other human beings. And they are just as likely to be outright liars when it suits their purposes. This second-hand smoke study is just a rather interesting demonstration of all three assertions. I hope it makes at least a few skeptics take another, very serious look at what the Bible has to say about absolutely everything.

Over the years, I’ve found that the Christian life really can be easy, if I would only pay attention to the Lord's advice.
 
Some years back, He brought this principle home to me in a particularly meaningful way, in the process changing my response to a perceived violation of my rights (a perennial problem for a recovering feminist like me).
 
Here’s what happened.
 
I spent most of my 40-year career as a freelance writer who worked extensively with one of the world’s largest corporations. This particular company was never quick to pay. And its Accounts Payable people always rewarded themselves with a “fast payment” discount even when it took them six months or more to pay a bill. But it was my largest client by far, so I couldn't really complain; at least I knew that they would pay me eventually.
 
But suddenly, towards the end of my working days, that changed. My last invoice was ignored completely; it didn’t even show up in this company’s online vendor-accounting system.
 
To make matters worse, the person who'd hired me for this last spate of projects had been forcibly retired, and his supervisor was not at all helpful; in fact, over the course of an entire year (yes, year!) she responded to my emails requesting payment updates with exactly two “I’ll look into it” replies. After that, nothing.
 
I finally managed to get a fellow in Accounts Payable on the phone. “You’re no longer an approved vendor,” he told me. “You were removed three months ago. Why? Beats me.” Maybe it was my punishment for trying to get paid.
 
It wasn't a crippling amount of money that I was owed. Viewed in light of all they had paid me over the years, it was practically nothing.
 
Still, I lost plenty of sleep over this issue. Many nights, I woke up at 1 a.m. and found myself awash in anger over this clear injustice, in frustration over my inability to get anywhere, in plots involving hiring some high-priced lawyer eager to stand up for the little guy.  For Pete’s sake, didn’t I at least deserve an explanation from these people? Didn’t I have a right to be treated with some respect, even though I was among the tiniest of vendors?
 
Most nights, I was ultimately able to calm myself with scriptural truth – especially Romans 8’s assurance that my omnipotent, omniscient God makes all things “work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” I’ve seen this verse play out many times in my own life, and the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. How could I let a little thing like an unpaid invoice shake my confidence and disturb my rest?
 
On the worst nights, I would retreat to other biblical advice: Turn the other cheek. Store up your treasures in heaven. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, make your requests known to the Lord. Every man will give an account for every idle word on judgment day (so there would be ultimate justice for the creeps who were treating me like an ant at a picnic).
 
And so on. The Bible has a great deal to say about money and pride and enemies and the Lord’s unlimited power and unwavering love for His children. In fact, it addresses everything that could possibly concern us in this life.
 
Still, I kept waking up at 1 a.m., primed for another marathon of tossing and turning over the same old issue.  
 
And then I came across the verse that set me free. It was Hebrews 10:34: “For you … joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.”
 
That did it! In just a few words, the author of Hebrews reminded me that this pesky little problem was completely irrelevant in light of the eternal glory awaiting me in heaven.
 
Sure, there are other biblical passages that make similar points. But for some reason, it took this particular verse, and this particular set of circumstances, to reset my heart.
 
If you have a problem that’s driving you to distraction, turn to the word of God. Read it. Meditate on it. Embrace its teachings. And memorize those passages that speak to you most clearly about the issues you’re grappling with today. Next time the torment threatens, you may be able to crush it immediately with His eternal truth. And maybe even find relief from the most relentless insomnia.

In recent years, there have been a few sporadic reports about dogs’ possibly infallible ability to detect various cancers with their noses--including breast cancer.
 
It’s early yet. No doubt it would take years of massive studies before anyone in the healthcare industry would admit creation’s superiority over man-made technologies. And considering what’s at stake for those already invested in this discipline, it’s possible that we’ll never hear much more about it. After all, the BBC reported on this amazing canine capability over eight years ago, and the corporate media haven’t exactly been jumping up and down about it.
 
And so we wait. But in the meantime, I find statements like this, focusing on the breast-cancer angle, very curious: “The technique is simple, non-invasive and cheap, and may revolutionise cancer detection in countries where mammograms are hard to come by.”
 
“In countries where mammograms are hard to come by”?
 
But according to the specialists at Susan G. Komen, while mammography demonstrates a sensitivity of about 87% for detecting breast cancer, its  specificity is relatively low; if you’re a woman who’s been faithfully following the experts’ recommendations for 10 years or more, your chances of experiencing a false-positive result is 50-60%. Which means that many obedient women end up experiencing unnecessary anxiety and follow-up testing over the course of their lives.
 
So if these phenomenal canine results are borne out, why wouldn’t you make 100% accurate doggie detection available everywhere, not just where mammograms are “hard to come by”?
 
I wonder, too, about our spending priorities.
 
These days, breast cancer research is a multi-billion-dollar industry; in the U.S. alone, the federal government’s National Cancer Institute spends far more investigating breast cancer than it does on any other form of the disease – even though colorectal, lung and pancreatic cancer each kill more Americans than breast cancer does. Why are we not putting that money into evaluating dogs’ utility for early detection and treatment monitoring for all kinds of cancer?

Could this emphasis on man-made technologies possibly be because only dog breeders and trainers stand to make money on canine detection?
 
Or because the cancer industry has already invested billions in equipment that would have to be chucked if dogs proved superior?
 
Or perhaps it’s because only God would get the glory for this remarkable canine-olfactory invention; and these days, only a minority of the “experts” even believe in Him.

News item: The rise and slow demise of hotel Bibles

​How many lost souls, over the decades, have picked up a Gideon Bible in their lonely hotel rooms, not even realizing it was written for them? 

How many have been transformed by what they found within? 

How many have discovered in its pages the peace that surpasses all understanding? 

How many have crossed the threshold into eternal life upon learning that the price of admission is simply repenting and trusting in Christ?

God only knows. But these days, more and more hotel and motel chains are making sure that it won't happen again under their roofs.   

As the travel reporter cited in the above article explains, " if [hotel chains are] not putting a Bible in, in many cases, it's just because they don't think people need it, and maybe there's not room for it.”

Right. People don't need it, according to progressive hospitality executives. And there's no room for it, not even in those empty desk drawers.

It makes you wonder what pompous little mid-level managers are making this decision – and if we will witness them trying to justify it on judgment day? I do hope so.

Not long ago, I heard yet another unbeliever citing “hypocritical Christians” as her primary excuse for rejecting Christianity.
 
Unfortunately for those who rely on it, it’s not an excuse that will fly on Judgment Day.
 
In the first place, born-again believers may be ambassadors for Jesus Christ, but we are not Him. We are all, in fact, colossal failures in the obedience department, and that indeed makes us all hypocrites to some extent. It's what makes His grace so amazing.
 
Secondly, our behavior has nothing to do with truth. To equate the two is a fallacy that logicians call a category mistake, “the error of assigning to something a quality or action which can only properly be assigned to things of another category” (Oxford dictionary).
 
The trouble is, unbelievers seem to be unable to grasp any of this. I write as one who spent 30 years of her adult life in that blinded condition, refusing to let such facts interfere with my beloved sin – in particular, my pride, self-righteousness and unbelief. 
 
Instead of investigating, unbelievers tend to cling to this logical fallacy as tenaciously as we believers cling to our Bibles. They use our behavior to judge Christianity’s validity. And that means they almost invariably reject truth, because it’s so very easy to find flaws in us.
 
All of which underscores the eternal importance of cleaning up our acts before unbelievers – because the onus is quite literally on us. It’s our responsibility to present Christ in the best possible light in spite of the unbeliever’s category error.
 
As imperfect beings, we’re going to be angry at times; we’re going to gossip; we’re going to break the speed limit; we’re going to snarl at a surly waitress or an ignorant comment about our faith. We need to repent of our sins, of course. But equally important, we need to do everything we can to avoid committing them before a lost and dying world, and be ready to apologize when we fail.
 
Above all, we need to put the love of Christ on permanent display in our lives, knowing that we are being watched, and that unbelievers are judging Christ Himself on the basis of our behavior. It's the only way we'll earn the right to ​share God's truth with them.

An update on my review of the ebook

There are so many things I love about this book, starting with the subject: What will it be like for those who are left behind when the Rapture occurs? What might they think about what has happened? How might they react?
 
What born-again Christian has not thought about these things in the face of beloved unbelievers’ stubborn resistance to the good news of Jesus Christ? Wyler tells us what she thinks, and I suspect she’s right.
 
To be honest, I didn’t like narrator Sarah Colton very much, but I think that’s because she reminded me of myself before I came to Christ (and sometimes since then, I’m ashamed to admit). She’s a self-absorbed feminist atheist, viewing the world through her own selfish eyes. Just one example: When a plane crashes near her home, the ambitious photojournalist grabs her equipment and races to capture the scene on video. Her motive? “This will make me famous. Sarah Colton has arrived …” (page 72). 
 
The author’s presentation of Sarah is consistent from start to finish. More than once, I wondered how someone so familiar with what Scripture says about everything from salvation to the Rapture could also have such accurate insight into a feminist atheist’s thinking. It’s really a brilliant character sketch.
 
I also appreciate Wyler’s generous use of foreshadowing. It’s fairly subtle; there’s none of the obvious “you could hear her coming in her wooden shoes” foretelling. But it’s the sort of thing that makes this reader’s heart smile when it plays itself out.
 
Then there’s the pacing. It’s flawless. The author continually turns up the tension and then gives the reader a breather with detours into less intense territory. For instance, on page 75, Sarah is rushing out to capture the aftermath of the crash on camera. Her heart is pounding, and so is mine. She takes this opportunity to tell us about her witnessing the convenience-store shooting of the governor’s son. Not a pleasant diversion, to be sure; but it’s in the past and Sarah has clearly survived the incident, so it lets the reader relax for a few moments.
 
But not for long. Wyler ramps it up again in short order, keeping my pulse racing and my eyes leaping through page after digital page.
 
As a result, I found it difficult to set this book aside. That may be due in part to the author’s use of the present tense throughout. Interestingly, I’m not at all a fan of present-tense novels; in the past, it has always struck me as gimmicky. But not in this case. The present tense is integral to the story. And Wyler handled it so transparently that I didn’t even notice it until I was halfway through the book.
 
But perhaps my favorite thing about Untaken is Sarah’s voice. This book is not simply written in the first person; it is written to the reader. Sarah holds a running conversation with you from beginning to end. She asks you what you think, and if you saw, heard, or felt what she did. She wonders if you’re still with her, or have abandoned her, as of course you are free to do. She invites you to tell her what you would do if you were in her shoes.
 
She gets kind of personal, too. In the aforementioned scene when she’s racing to the crash site, she asks, “Are you keeping up with me? I do not know what shape you are in healthwise, but step it up as we must get to the scene before anyone else does.”
 
Sarah even admonishes the reader a time or two for failing to help her. “Are you here with me?” she asks on page 166. “But why do I bother asking you? You have been of no help since we started this relationship.”
 
It’s crazy and I found it endearing. Since there’s nothing new under the sun, as Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes, I suppose that other writers have pioneered this technique. But I’d certainly never seen it. In fact, I’ve never read anything quite like Untaken.
 
A bonus: Wyler closes with an interesting discussion of the choices she made in writing the story and an appeal for the reader to believe on Christ. She also includes Bible passages describing the Rapture and God’s plan of salvation.
 
Bottom line: This is an irresistible book that I think virtually any true believer would thoroughly enjoy--one that all unbelievers really should read and ponder, before it’s too late. Find it here. (The ebook is still free everywhere except on Amazon.)