God's Grace from Ground Zero

Rating:
Summary: A weak attempt to make sense of 9-11
Review: "God's Grace from Ground Zero," by Jim Cymbala with Stephen Sorenson, is an attempt to make sense of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 from an evangelical/fundamentalist Christian perspective. While Cymbala's intentions are clearly good, I found the book stale and narrow of vision.

First of all, the book is clearly written to an exclusive fundamentalist Christian audience and much of it will likely be either irrelevant or a turn-off to readers of other faith traditions. In fact, Cymbala (who is identified as the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle on the book cover) makes a point of criticizing multi-faith inclusivity. He makes it clear that his only interest in, for example, Muslims is as potential converts to his faith system.

Other than that, I found his thoughts on the theological ramifications of 9-11 to be shallow and obvious: God's ways are inscrutable, people have free will, anything can be seen as a blessing if it leads us to pray more, etc. If you're looking for something that addresses 9-11 in a really thoughtful and moving way, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: A weak attempt to make sense of 9-11
Review: "God's Grace from Ground Zero," by Jim Cymbala with Stephen Sorenson, is an attempt to make sense of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 from an evangelical/fundamentalist Christian perspective. While Cymbala's intentions are clearly good, I found the book stale and narrow of vision.

First of all, the book is clearly written to an exclusive fundamentalist Christian audience and much of it will likely be either irrelevant or a turn-off to readers of other faith traditions. In fact, Cymbala (who is identified as the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle on the book cover) makes a point of criticizing multi-faith inclusivity. He makes it clear that his only interest in, for example, Muslims is as potential converts to his faith system.

Other than that, I found his thoughts on the theological ramifications of 9-11 to be shallow and obvious: God's ways are inscrutable, people have free will, anything can be seen as a blessing if it leads us to pray more, etc. If you're looking for something that addresses 9-11 in a really thoughtful and moving way, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Freshness at stake
Review: I have a great respect for Pastor Cymbala. I believe that he is a great preacher, annointed and full of God's grace. I heard him several times and have been blessed by his sermons. However, I have read several of his books and frankly I am starting to be a little disappointed. "Fresh Wind Fresh Fire" was a great book on the power of prayer but since then, Cymbala's books seem to be a little redundant in their styles. The Brooklyn Tab's illustrations are similar and Cymbala's message is too. The "Freshness" of his first book and rightly so best-seller is fading. This book addresses a vague theodicy of 9-11 and the testimonies, while touching, have less impact today than soon after. While I did not enjoy this book too much, I still think that this book would be good for someone who never read Cymbala before.

Rating:
Summary: Adequately achieves what it sets out to do
Review: Jim Cymbala draws from personal stories from the Brooklyn Tabernacle, along with a number of his own life experiences, in seeking to demonstrate God's grace in the midst of 9/11. While this book is far from a comprehensive Christian response to the events of 9/11, it mostly succeeds in painting an inspirational portrait of God and how He has been working throughout New York City and the nation, and also within the halls of Brooklyn Tabernacle in the wake of the tragedy.

Various portions of this book read like a powerful sermon, which makes sense given that Cymbala is a pastor. In particular, his discourse on persevering in Christ today by drawing upon various Biblical examples such as the life of Paul or the Hebrew enslavement in Egypt are especially moving and inspiring. Cymbala also takes a bold stance against what he calls 'make believe prophets' who tried to affix earthly and mostly ideologically based reasons and/or judgments to the attacks.

The book is not quite as good as it could have been for at least one reason. Cymbala could (and should) have gone farther in providing tangible reasons for folks to trust God even in the midst of tragedies that are not entirely understandable. He does touch on this, and attempts to demonstrate God's faithfulness in working through great tragedy by pointing to a couple of specific things in history, but this section could have been elaborated on in much greater length to show the reader that God has turned tragedy into victory over and over again, and that this gives us very reasonable and tangible reasons to trust God to do the same thing now. Instead, Cymbala deemphasizes this and stresses more of a 'trust God because we know God is good' approach without really supporting this assertion adequately for those who may not consider this view to be a given.

But with this exception, I think this book is good for conveying a sense of God's grace, how we need to be responding to it, how others have already responded to it, and how we can continue to have joy and hope even in the midst of great sorrow and tragedy by focusing on an eternal perspective. This book is short and not very deep, but there are many good truths that are conveyed in it, along with powerful personal stories that are very authentic, and that makes it worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Adequately achieves what it sets out to do
Review: Jim Cymbala draws from personal stories from the Brooklyn Tabernacle, along with a number of his own life experiences, in seeking to demonstrate God's grace in the midst of 9/11. While this book is far from a comprehensive Christian response to the events of 9/11, it mostly succeeds in painting an inspirational portrait of God and how He has been working throughout New York City and the nation, and also within the halls of Brooklyn Tabernacle in the wake of the tragedy.

Various portions of this book read like a powerful sermon, which makes sense given that Cymbala is a pastor. In particular, his discourse on persevering in Christ today by drawing upon various Biblical examples such as the life of Paul or the Hebrew enslavement in Egypt are especially moving and inspiring. Cymbala also takes a bold stance against what he calls 'make believe prophets' who tried to affix earthly and mostly ideologically based reasons and/or judgments to the attacks.

The book is not quite as good as it could have been for at least one reason. Cymbala could (and should) have gone farther in providing tangible reasons for folks to trust God even in the midst of tragedies that are not entirely understandable. He does touch on this, and attempts to demonstrate God's faithfulness in working through great tragedy by pointing to a couple of specific things in history, but this section could have been elaborated on in much greater length to show the reader that God has turned tragedy into victory over and over again, and that this gives us very reasonable and tangible reasons to trust God to do the same thing now. Instead, Cymbala deemphasizes this and stresses more of a 'trust God because we know God is good' approach without really supporting this assertion adequately for those who may not consider this view to be a given.

But with this exception, I think this book is good for conveying a sense of God's grace, how we need to be responding to it, how others have already responded to it, and how we can continue to have joy and hope even in the midst of great sorrow and tragedy by focusing on an eternal perspective. This book is short and not very deep, but there are many good truths that are conveyed in it, along with powerful personal stories that are very authentic, and that makes it worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughts on 9/11 from the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle
Review: This book came out only 3 months after the tragic events of September 11th. The Brooklyn Tabernacle is close to the WTC and people came by the Brooklyn Tabernacle as they dazedly walked away from the ruins at ground zero. The church quickly mobilized to offer passersby cups of water, spiritual comfort, a place to worship and pray, etc.

At the beginning of the book, Pastor Jim Cymbala tells how he couldn't sleep that Monday night, 9-10-01. This was unusual for him and there seemed to be no physical reason for this. As he lay in bed, this verse came to mind - Proverbs 10:5:

"He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son." After hours of reflecting on this verse, Jim came to the conclusion that it's harvest time in New York City and he must find a wsay to reach its people for Christ.

This book tells stories of Brooklyn Tabernacle attenders who lost people in the WTC and people who were miraculously spared. Jim Cymbala describes this whole event as a wake-up call to our nation.

This book is a must-read if you've read any of Jim Cymbala's other books.

Please check out my reviews of other Christians books!