A Fistful of Heroes: Christians at the Forefront of Change

Who cares about church history? Can we learn anything from it? English author John Pollock has given us several full-length biographies of Christian heroes in the past. In this book he collects 28 biographical sketches of great Christian men and women from whom we can indeed learn a great deal. Although all are either Englishmen or Americans from the eighteenth, nineteenth, or twentieth centuries, there constitute an amazing variety of people, including many you would not meet with in a standard book on church history. The book is divided into five sections. The first section, Setting the prisoners free, has four sketches dealing with Englishmen who helped bring the slave trade to an end, including John Newton and William Wilberforce. The second section, Make the foulest clean, has four skecthes of English Christian social reformers, including the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. The third section, Soldiers for Christ, portrays three military men, including American Stonewall Jackson. The fourth section, Assist me to proclaim, is about evangelists, such as D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey, and Lord Radstock, who took the Gospel to Russia in the nineteenth century. The last section of twelve sketches, Into all the world, is about missionaries. It includes William Carey, Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, Mary Slessor, the martyrs John and Betty Stam, and others. John Pollock gives us a well-written record of a galaxy of Christian heroes. As he says, "They differed from each other in character and achievement but their dedication shames a softer age." I read it out loud to my family (which includes five children) to their enjoyment and profit. Mr. Pollock demonstrates that Christian biography is indeed worthwhile.