I read Through Gates of Splendour, by Elisabeth Elliot as part of the Christian Greats Reading Challenge, as Category 6 (A Missionary Biography or A Biography of a Prominent Christian who lived any time between 1500 A.D to 1950 A.D). Jim Elliot and his less-famous companions just sneak into this timeframe, as they died in 1956.
I was vaguely familiar with the basics of the story of Jim Elliot’s missionary work and dramatic death in Ecuador, at the hands of the unreached tribe he was attempting to witness to. I don’t know how aware I was that he died alongside four other men who also gave their lives (literally) to mission work in Ecuador.
Biographies aren’t something that I read a lot of, although I don’t think this is entirely an accurate term for this book. The book really focuses on the few years prior to the tragedy, the event itself and the aftermath. Elisabeth Elliot tells the story with a heavy reliance on letters and diary entries written by the men themselves, and she fills in the gaps with narrative. There is a small amount of back-story provided on each man’s life before Ecuador, so in that sense, it’s not a biography. But I’m counting it! Ha!
I don’t think it’s always helpful to measure books based on how engaged or entertained I am as a reader … but I did notice that the first quarter of the book was hard going. Once the narrative shifted to the highly charged attempts to make contact with the Auca-Waodani tribe, and the suspected deaths of the men, and the search for their bodies, I found it much more readable and I blitzed through the last half.
It’s impossible to be left cold over the deaths of these men, especially when you’ve heard their own words convey the eagerness they had to see unreached people groups hear the gospel. It was a strong reminder to me that my life in the West is extremely comfortable, and the things that I feel I give up for the gospel are fairly paltry indeed. It made me ask questions about my own level of faith and my own heart for people who are ignorant of Jesus’ love for them. I was moved by their passion and drive, their willingness to sacrifice so many things, even their own lives with their wives and families. I was also really challenged by the fortitude and trust of the women who were widowed through the experience, and the surrender they displayed. I know that if my husband was wanting to reach out to a tribe that were known killers, I would probably be flinging myself at his feet and beseeching him to not leave my children without a father. I truly don’t know how they walked through that experience. In that sense, there is a definite sense of generational disconnect, reading as a ‘millennial’. The ‘1950s wife’ mindset comes through very strongly to this 2019 woman. It’s not a bad thing, in fact I think it’s rather valuable. But I did notice it.
My main criticism of the book would be the bland narrative voice from Elisabeth Elliot herself. I realise that the intention of the book was to provide an account of “what happened”, but I found myself wanting to hear so much more of how it felt, and the internal struggles and victories that these women walked through. The writing was sparse and even monotone at times — I suppose the events themselves certainly didn’t require hyping up. Elisabeth does refer at the end of the book to her personal experience and it was wonderful (albeit written in 1996 with the benefit of decades of hindsight). Perhaps her writing within a year of her husband’s death reflects her own state of grief, shock and coping mechanisms. But it almost came across as devoid of emotion, and that detracted from the overall effect in my mind. It could almost have been written by a stranger who compiled the documents and didn’t know the men themselves.
Elisabeth Elliot did go on to write many more books, including ones that detailed her and Jim’s courtship and love story, so I guess her overall body of work might answer those questions. But as a stand-alone book, it felt unsatisfactory.
Still, I mean ….. this is an incredible story. These were incredible men. The blood of martyrs is an incredible gift to the body of Christ and we need to read stories like this regularly. It stokes the fire of our own faith and reminds us of the call of Christ to lay down and die.
Thank you, Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully and Pete Fleming.
Family Learning 