Book Review: The Poisonwood Bible

This year I started reading books together with my friend who is also the pastor of one of our supporting churches.  We read a book each month and discuss.  The first book we read together was The Poisonwood Bible.  I thought I'd give you a few thoughts about the book in case you were considering reading it.

First of all, it was a very interesting book.  It is set in the Belgian Congo, what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is about the life and ministry of an American missionary family.  The book is well written, with interesting unique characters, interesting events (both personal and political), and it really gives you a whiff of the rich aroma of African life, down to gritty details.

Even though the book's setting is roughly 50 years ago, I was amazed at how many commonalities there are between the missionary life then and our lives in Uganda today.  We are still stared at and people still ask us for stuff every day, which is surprising since mzungus have been in Uganda for 100 years.  The book also reminded me again about certain things I love about African culture, and things I find disturbing and wrong.  Just like there are things I love about my own culture, as well as things in it that I find disturbing and wrong.

The book is very challenging regarding political and economic issues (though perhaps a bit anti-American).  It was convicting thinking about the role the USA (and other Western countries) has played in the destinies of other countries.  It's probably far too easy to judge our leaders for past events in hindsight, and yet, it is profoundly disturbing to think of the ways we have messed with the leadership of other countries for our own ends, especially because in some cases this has caused great poverty, corruption, or violence.  The book is of course fiction, but it parallels much that has really happened.  The book inspired me that as one very small voice, I need to do what I can to help my country act justly. 

I started thinking that if I can't control the huge large scale problems my country and other countries are causing, at least I can try to make a personal difference.  In the book, at times the individuals of the missionary family are at odds with the actions of their home country.  I think the same is true for us today.  The USA is a very generous country and is trying to help other countries, but often the giving is done unwisely and can increase corruption or dependency.  So as in the book, sometimes I feel like my country is doing great harm on a large scale, while I'm trying to do the opposite on a very tiny scale.  That can be quite depressing.

One of the main themes of the book is a very critical look at the pastor missionary father of the family.  In my opinion, he is an extreme caricature, as opposed to the other characters which are mostly balanced and believable.  I'm not saying that there never has been a pastor like him.  I'm sure there has been, but they must be an extremely small percentage.  He is abusive, racist, foolish, uncaring, unloving, hypocritical, prideful, selfish, and ridiculous in his missionary methods.  It was painful to read and I kept wanting to shout, "Not all pastors are secretly abusive and unloving!"  My concern is that the book perpetuates an offensive and inaccurate stereotype of pastors and conservative Christianity in general.  Most Christians I know are very loving, not hypocritical, and up front about their weaknesses.

I am also concerned that the book gives a false impression of real Christian mission work.  We live in a culture in which tolerance means pretending we all believe the same thing, and that love means not telling someone they are wrong about something.  We live in a culture in which trying to convert people is seen as intolerant, oppressive, and even hateful.  As I strive to help people see why missions is actually a loving thing, this book could work against me.  The author in a way sets up a straw man argument, a terribly intolerant (in the real sense of the word) racist example of mission work.  Such an example of missions makes it easy for anyone to criticize missions as oppressive and intolerant.  Even I, after reading the book, thought for a second, "should I even be a missionary?"

But the truth is, most missionaries today, are not like him in the least.  Missionaries are careful and culturally sensitive and not trying to take Africans out of their culture.  Missionaries are not doing their work to get a scorecard of converts.  They are sharing their faith with other people because they have experienced God's love through Jesus, and they cannot help but share that love with other people.  To not share how to have a relationship with God would be the most hateful thing to do.  See this old post for more on that.  Thinking about all of this, in some ways the book seems very anti-Christian, though it's possible that was not the author's intent, and maybe it was intended as a helpful correction to the errors of some Christians.

In the end, I would heartily recommend this book to young missionaries who are passionate in their faith and excited to do mission work.  Such a book will give them good challenges to work through regarding their faith, missions, culture, and politics.  And they will find it an enjoyable, if somewhat depressing, story to read.  Hopefully reading it would help reveal to them any ethnocentrism or racism that they might not realize they have (most of us have these to at least some extent).  And it's a book that helps us to think through the difficulties of presenting the Gospel in new cultures.

I am very glad I read the book.  It was a book that was hard to put down because it was so interesting and the characters were so colorful.  It was a book that made me think.  Yet, because of the above, I recommend it only with some qualification and caution.  If any of you do go out and read it, let me know what you think of it!