Review: Faithful Heart by Al Lacy
Posted in Academic Pursuits and tagged with Bible, Book Review, Christianity on February 26, 2010
While this review is talking about this book specifically, the points I make aren’t directed at Al Lacy exclusively. Most of these issues are common faults found with the bulk of “Christian” fiction.
I received a review copy of Faithful Heart from Multnomah. I thought it sounded like an interesting book, set in the western US in the 1870s. There’s basically two storylines following two sisters: one who is making a trek west via wagon train and the other who is struggling being married to a man dealing with violent mental issues related to his Civil War service.
Al Lacy’s not a bad writer necessarily, but this book is a great example of Christian fiction gone bad. While Lacy does try to tackle a real-life issue (mental illness) and I commend him for that, he goes about it all wrong.
First, the answer given for the mental problem is seeking professional help (as pointed out by each and every character). Laying aside how strange this seems in the 1870s setting and the horrors that were mental health asylums in that day, this is just poor theology. Perhaps you, my reader, wouldn’t agree with that, but I believe that the Bible is all sufficient for our needs. Though a psychiatrist may offer valuable help, that’s not the first place to go.
Secondly, this book is chock full with church-y language. The conversations between characters come off as untrue to real life, like a play written by an amateur (me, for instance). Like most Christians who’ve been around the church a lot I’m guilty of this as well, but it does make me cringe. There is a way to write a story from a biblical worldview without making it sound like it was written in a Sunday School. The God of the Bible is so much more than that.
My last major issue with this book is that everything is tied up in a neat bow. While that might be the way we would like things, real life doesn’t work that way and we fool ourselves when we place hope that it will. Mental illness is messy. Even more so, our sin nature is (which we rarely see in this book aside from the “bad” guys).
To be fair, this was originally published 25 years ago. Perhaps Lacy wouldn’t have written the book this way if he wrote it today. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this matter.
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February 26th, 2010 at 9:20 am
While I have not read the book, I’d like to comment on the view of mental illness you spoke about. I agree that we tend to fall more on medications, psychiatry and the like before we fall upon God with these issues. And I agree that we should definitely fall upon the Lord first and devote time to trusting Him. However, there are people who’s mental illness is an actual chemical imbalance. Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and multiple personality disorder are all related to a malfunction in the brain. God is sovereign. He allows or doesn’t allow certain things. We have psychiatrists and the different medications because God allowed them to be created by man and for proper and good use.
I definitely agree that churchy language is a turn off…especially to new and non believers. I am a believer and I am turned off by this sort of language mostly because it sets us as Christians too far apart from the world. We should be approachable by non believers, and I feel like overly church language definitely hinders that.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:20 am
I’m with Liz on the issue of mental illness.
No, I don’t agree with the statements you made but I do think the book sounds very interesting from an argument perspective which you caught on to and pointed out and I think that is fascinating. It sounds good for discussion!
February 26th, 2010 at 11:11 am
I agree with Carrie and Liz about mental disorders. There are many of them that require assistance in the medical capacity because they are chemical imbalances, or even hereditary.
I also agree with Carrie–this sounds good for discussion! I’ve never been able to swallow Christian Fiction very well, for many of the reasons you described above. Well-written!
February 26th, 2010 at 11:42 am
I didn’t mean for this to turn to a discussion about Christianity and mental disorders, but I think that’s a good thing to talk about. If I get my act together, I might put a post together on it.
To be clear on the mental disorder in this book, it’s not presented as a chemical imbalance (which would have been even more out of place in the 1870s!) but dementia praecox. Now that I look it up, this term wasn’t used until 1791 (anachronism…ack!). Basically, he was suffering from shell shock from his experience in the Civil War (though they use the term “shell shock,” the term’s from the WWI…the more I research, the more this book bugs me).
Anyway, my point is that his combat stress reaction problems seem to primarily extend not from a chemical imbalance (which even today is not proven to be the cause of mental illness), but his experiences, the sin done to him, and his own sin. Any treatment of mental illness that ignores/disputes the sinfulness of man is severely lacking.
In this case, I’d agree that he needed to be removed from his family (since he was a threat to them) but not that he necessarily needed psychiatric treatment. I don’t mean that he could he get “better” on his own, just that he needed someone to work through his experiences and his reactions to them with an open Bible, allowing him to recognize his own sin and more importantly the God who is sovereign, wise, and good even in this. He’d likely struggle with this his whole life, but with God’s help he can manage until God ultimately rescues him from it.
February 26th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
leaving the whole mental illness thing aside, although I am a Christian, I finally told my mom to stop buying Christian romantic fiction for me because I despise it with every fiber of my being. As a very extremely single woman, I hate that these books ALWAYS end in marriage. They follow the same basic plot 99% of the time and are generally so saccharinely sweet that I want to fling it across the room and activate the super shredder.
To put it mildly.
=) I won’t even get into the mental illness, except to say that I agree with the first three commenters, sometimes therapy and medication is necessary.
February 28th, 2010 at 1:22 am
I think Al Lacy is pretty much the worst Christian fiction has to offer.
There is some good Christian fiction, but this is not it.
And regarding mental illness…well, pretty much the worst thing in the world to me is insisting someone get over something via only prayer and the Bible. I’m not sure that’s what you’re saying, but it borders on a form of spiritual abuse in my opinion. I very much believe God has allowed us to make progress in understanding our minds, and have medicines, etc for a reason. I agree that immediately turning to medication might not be the answer, but there should be no shame for a Christian in seeking professional help when they have a problem.