The Summons

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and believable
Review: Dennis McCallum apparently gave up fiction writing after the publication of this novel 10 years ago, which is a shame. The guy can write. His novel needs some editorial work, but his natural talent carries it.

Sherry is no "Felicity". She's a suffer-no-fools, intelligent young woman who has always run her own life. Now, she finds herself wondering why her social and academic success leaves her feeling that life is missing something vital.

McCallum's mistake is in his tendency to tell us what she's feeling, rather than write it out in action and dialog. For example, when Sherry is on a date with a self-involved bore, the author merely tells us: Sherry was bored and told the guy she was unwell so she could split early. It would have been a whole lot livelier, and gotten us more quickly involved with Sherry, if the author had played out the scene in thoughts and conversation. This is basic creative-writing-class stuff, and with some practice, McCallum would be a terrific novelist, because his characters are very real and individualized, and dialog is clearly his forte - he makes it natural, interesting and witty.

Through the fictional character of group leader Jack, McCallum makes a clear case for Christianity, and spells out what he sees as weaknesses in both the "formalist" and the rather New Age-y "relativist" approaches, both of which Sherry investigates. Whether you (or I) agree with all McCallum's points, the bottom line is that he integrates information into a story very well, rather than halting the story to insert an essay - not easy for a fiction writer!

I greatly like the novel's depiction of strong young women. They may be dealing with attraction and relationship issues, like any 20-something, but Sherry, Lisa, and others make it clear that a healthy Christian woman is an independent thinker, well-centered spiritually, and, in Lisa's words, is "nobody's spiritual babysitting project."

It's too bad some of the descriptive passages fall flat, but i still found it involving!

Rating:
Summary: Timely Literature
Review: This author was new to me. I had a little trouble with the young woman, Sherry. She seemed quite stuck on her self. The book as a whole was very good. I too, have been envolved with "formalism" and have experienced it's destruction upon my life. The book brought out the Truth that some people might not want to hear or should I say read. One does not have to be ordained to teach the WORD. In fact a person can be lead to Christ by one who has experienced HIS love.

Rating:
Summary: Amateurish writing, detestable theology
Review: This is a particularly gruesome example of all the bad art that gets published by virtue of being Christian -- and I use the word "virtue" loosely here. The writing is laughably amateurish and the theology is detestable. The author, who apparently is "the handsome Jack Collins" himself, seems less concerned about making a a case for Christianity than for his own particular brand of it -- and, in the meantime, making everybody else wrong, wrong, wrong. This is narcissism justified by a rather twisted interpretation of the Christian faith. Think the worst of Ayn Rand, in a Christian package. This book made me wonder why there's so much lame stuff out there under the Christian label -- mediocre music, kitschy art, and, incredibly bad fiction, like The Summons.

Rating:
Summary: A Few Good Points to be Made
Review: While the quality of the writing in The Summons could be better, the author is successful in breaking through the "churchiness" of church and helping the reader to see what non-essential traditions and methods of the church look like from the outside in. We see Sherry, the typical intelligent, unchurched college student, go through a personal crisis which causes her to seek spiritual answers. She examines several versions of faith including a typical protestant church where her experience is dry, and the traditions have overtaken the message of the gospel. By contrast she becomes involved in a campus house church, where traditions are stripped away and a vital outreach ministry is in process. The reader is left to examine just what elements of traditional church are essential to Christianity and which need to be changed and adapted to reach a changing post-modern culture. McCallum's side-trip into spiritual warfare would have been best left out of the novel entirely, but the insights into effective outreach, as well as the sermons delivered by "Jack" make this novel worth reading. We would do well to look at our own churches through the eyes of an outsider, and consider what may be inhibiting our witness.

Rating:
Summary: A Few Good Points to be Made
Review: While the quality of the writing in The Summons could be better, the author is successful in breaking through the "churchiness" of church and helping the reader to see what non-essential traditions and methods of the church look like from the outside in. We see Sherry, the typical intelligent, unchurched college student, go through a personal crisis which causes her to seek spiritual answers. She examines several versions of faith including a typical protestant church where her experience is dry, and the traditions have overtaken the message of the gospel. By contrast she becomes involved in a campus house church, where traditions are stripped away and a vital outreach ministry is in process. The reader is left to examine just what elements of traditional church are essential to Christianity and which need to be changed and adapted to reach a changing post-modern culture. McCallum's side-trip into spiritual warfare would have been best left out of the novel entirely, but the insights into effective outreach, as well as the sermons delivered by "Jack" make this novel worth reading. We would do well to look at our own churches through the eyes of an outsider, and consider what may be inhibiting our witness.