Those who have enjoyed following the best-selling work of Malcolm Gladwell will find his article in Relevant to be a fascinating insight into the iconoclastic author’s religious roots, faith rediscovery, his latest book, and even his research methods. To the best of my knowledge, Gladwell’s theology is undeveloped at best. But I think there’s a valuable lesson in what he says about “seeing God’s power.” The closing:
I have always believed in God. I have grasped the logic of Christian faith. What I have had a hard time seeing is God’s power.
I put that sentence in the past tense because something happened to me when I sat in Wilma Derksen’s garden. It is one thing to read in a history book about people empowered by their faith. But it is quite another to meet an otherwise very ordinary person, in the backyard of a very ordinary house, who has managed to do something utterly extraordinary.
Their daughter was murdered. And the first thing the Derksens did was to stand up at the press conference and talk about the path to forgiveness. “We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.”
Maybe we have difficulty seeing the weapons of the spirit because we don’t know where to look, or because we are distracted by the louder claims of material advantage. But I’ve seen them now, and I will never be the same.
HT: Nancy Pearcey