I’ve been looking forward to this discussion for some time. I’m glad to see it’s begun. I finished the book several weeks ago and it has stuck with me.
I likely first encountered Elisabeth Elliot in her book Gates of Splendour, back in the 1980’s, when I was in my mid-twenties and interested in missions. I ran across her again as a home-school mom in the late 90’s, as the Christian purity culture became popular. I never did read her book Passion and Purity, although I read Harris’s I Kissed Dating Good-bye with great enthusiasm. Some of my home school friends were starting to wear long skirts and sneakers and follow the teachings of Bill Gothard as well. (My husband pulled me back from being a full-blown follower of all this, and my kids eventually dated and married Christian spouses, in case you’re wondering the end of that story…) Then, sometime later, I read Elliot’s biography on Amy Carmichael, A Chance to Die. I realize many people are inspired by her life story, but I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable thought that Carmichael was a controlling woman who had to get her own way. I know she did tremendous work for the Lord and many who read it came out in awe of her, but I came out feeling deflated and still can’t warm up to Amy Carmichael . Elisabeth wasn’t one for hagiography.
I didn’t have any problem warming to Elisabeth’s personality from this biography. She came alive to me. I felt for her struggle in relationships, her bluntness and social awkwardness at times. I found her delightful and surprising (some of her book choices, for example). I found her deep love for the Lord and Scripture inspiring. I identify with the way she changed, as I also have changed, sometimes in a similar pattern to her.
What surprised me? To think that after discerning a call to missions, she eventually concluded that her mission work had come to nothing and that her calling was obedience; that her real ministry was writing and speaking. And I was surprised that it had been so awful working with Rachel Saint!
And the whole Addison Leitch story surprised me. I’d assumed he was a meek, intellectual theologian, not a brilliant, charismatic figure, and a skilled lover yet! I chuckled when I read that. And how they fell in love and Elisabeth adored him. And of course, there was the jealousy and the cancer and the dreadful suffering at the end.
I am interested in pursuing Elliot’s understanding of missions and what it means to know and do the will of God. I plan to read her book These Strange Ashes book, and perhaps the one her friend Eleanor Vandevort wrote, A Leopard Tamed, to further explore this.
I have pondered the difficulties in her third marriage and her understanding of submission. Lars wasn’t a communicator and liked to control things. Yet he was a sincere Christian, and might have benefitted from some healthy confrontation when he perhaps unknowingly steamrolled over Elisabeth. How does that fit with submission? It’s a good question for those of us who subscribe to “complementarianism.” I think spouses benefit from each others’ (ideally loving) confrontation and discussion at times.
Hi Gail, and thank you for joining the discussion! I'm glad to read some of your backstory with Elliot's writing, and I'm really interested to hear of your take-away from A Chance to Die, particularly since a lot of readers who already knew of AC thought the bio showed too many warts/wasn't adulatory enough. The chapters toward the end that describe her separation of spouses, etc., certainly seem to support your uncomfortable thought.
It's great to hear what stood out to you and that you connected with in EE: A Life, and I love that you're laying out a reading schedule to follow up. I do hope you will read Leopard--I believe there are some first editions kicking around still on AbeBooks and so on, but there's also a beautiful new 50th anniversary edition with the original illustrations (by Elliot's brother, James Howard) and introduction by EE, but also a really nice new introduction by Valerie Elliot Shepard and some new photographs.
I think you raise a very important question about how to square a good deal of teaching on what submission looks like with an understanding of what healthy communication looks like. I would love for this book to raise that question generally.
Thanks for your response Lucy! It's good to hear that others have felt A Chance to Die didn't show Carmichael in a good light. I'd read so many positive reviews that I wondered how I'd come away rather disheartened. I'll check into that 50th anniversary edition of Leopard. It sounds lovely.
I just finished Elizabeth Elliot’s biography of Amy Carmichael as well, and while I definitely noticed a thread that pointed to Amy being very confident in the word she heard from the Lord, something that would definitely feel controlling, and was not super attractive to me either, I also know that Elizabeth does make it seem that she must have been aware of this, and that as she came closer to the end of her life she was very careful to point out and say often to her family as she called them, that they were not to ask what would Amy would do, but to seek after God’s will. In some ways I really appreciate that her strong personality was brought out because I think it shows that no matter our personalities and the faults that go along with them, God uses all of us and the strength and weaknesses of our personalities to His glory if that is our true heart’s desire. I have often been comforted by this when reading the Bible, as the very same things are shown in God‘s very own word.It is very important that people not put any human being on a pedestal, or we will be disappointed for sure! And also, they become a certain sort of god to us, or on the other hand because of their admirable qualities we look and look for weaknesses and ways in which to make them like us. Which we will surely find because except for the grace of God… and Amy said this many times, it’s why she did not want to be featured, photographed, or given awards. I I have found it to be true that humans that have strong personalities and very amazing strengths often have the balancing weaknesses, it is because of the strength and the opposing weaknesses that we have the other. I think we would all do well too look at our fellow Christians and see the way in which they can point us to God, and while not protecting them when they need to be corrected for sure, allowing their struggles and weaknesses to be a way in which to draw even closer to God personally.
I just finished Elizabeth Elliot’s biography of Amy Carmichael as well, and while I definitely noticed a thread that pointed to Amy being very confident in the word she heard from the Lord, something that would definitely feel controlling, and was not super attractive to me either, I also know that Elizabeth does make it seem that she must have been aware of this, and that as she came closer to the end of her life she was very careful to point out and say often to her family as she called them, that they were not to ask what would Amy would do, but to seek after God’s will. In some ways I really appreciate that her strong personality was brought out because I think it shows that no matter our personalities and the faults that go along with them, God uses all of us and the strength and weaknesses of our personalities to His glory if that is our true heart’s desire. I have often been comforted by this when reading the Bible, as the very same things are shown in God‘s very own word.It is very important that people not put any human being on a pedestal, or we will be disappointed for sure! And also, they become a certain sort of god to us, or on the other hand because of their admirable qualities we look and look for weaknesses and ways in which to make them like us. Which we will surely find because except for the grace of God… and Amy said this many times, it’s why she did not want to be featured, photographed, or given awards. I I have found it to be true that humans that have strong personalities and very amazing strengths often have the balancing weaknesses, it is because of the strength and the opposing weaknesses that we have the other. I think we would all do well too look at our fellow Christians and see the way in which they can point us to God, and while not protecting them when they need to be corrected for sure, allowing their struggles and weaknesses to be a way in which to draw even closer to God personally.
What a great idea to pair their two biographies--lots of food for thought to be found there! I think it is an eternal challenge to hold all of the parts of a person in tension, whether that person is "famous," or a housemate, or our own self. It's so difficult not to either weight the bad more heavily, and reject people, or to weight the good nore heavily, and fail to address harm. May God help us to live in the tension!
I just finished Elizabeth Elliot’s biography of Amy Carmichael as well, and while I definitely noticed a thread that pointed to Amy being very confident in the word she heard from the Lord, something that would definitely feel controlling, and was not super attractive to me either, I also know that Elizabeth does make it seem that she must have been aware of this, and that as she came closer to the end of her life she was very careful to point out and say often to her family as she called them, that they were not to ask what would Amy would do, but to seek after God’s will. In some ways I really appreciate that her strong personality was brought out because I think it shows that no matter our personalities and the faults that go along with them, God uses all of us and the strength and weaknesses of our personalities to His glory if that is our true heart’s desire. I have often been comforted by this when reading the Bible, as the very same things are shown in God‘s very own word.It is very important that people not put any human being on a pedestal, or we will be disappointed for sure! And also, they become a certain sort of god to us, or on the other hand because of their admirable qualities we look and look for weaknesses and ways in which to make them like us. Which we will surely find because except for the grace of God… and Amy said this many times, it’s why she did not want to be featured, photographed, or given awards. I I have found it to be true that humans that have strong personalities and very amazing strengths often have the balancing weaknesses, it is because of the strength and the opposing weaknesses that we have the other. I think we would all do well too look at our fellow Christians and see the way in which they can point us to God, and while not protecting them when they need to be corrected for sure, allowing their struggles and weaknesses to be a way in which to draw even closer to God personally.
I LOVED reading more about your process and seeing the complicated vision board and reams of paper you had to dig through. I'm one of those relics who has read everything Elisabeth wrote and still have a file folder with a good number of her newsletters. She was and continues to be a "book mentor" to me through her writing. I had also read her friend Van's book with its controversial thoughts on the mindset of 20th century missions, so I wasn't surprised by Elisabeth's thinking on the topic.
I think that only someone with both Elisabeth's personality and upbringing could have pulled off the life she ultimately inhabited. Not many of us would choose Isaiah 50:7 as a life verse because our faces don't have a sufficient supply of flint for the job. That may not have been a good thing for Elisabeth when all is said and done.
I came away from your book (and from volume 2 of Ellen Vaughn's bio) saddened for the heaviness of some of EE's disappointments and inconsistencies, but even more grateful for the grace that I receive for my own.
Michele, I'm so glad! And glad you've read Leopard--I think it's a good one.
Thinking about what you say about a supply of flint, one of the things I wrestle with is discerning what's the "taking up our cross" that we're all called to and what legitimately varies because different people are made with different amounts of flint. I'm thankful for her steadfastness across the arc of her life even as I disagree with her understanding of what obedience meant in some instances.
And I am right there with you, both on the heaviness and sadness, and on being thankful for grace. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Yes! I feel that I can be controlling or dominating person at times and it is helpful to see that regardless of our weaknesses or simply other’s response to our personalities really, that God prevails and He is glorified.
I'm belatedly joining the conversation, having read "Elisabeth Elliot: A Life" in September, 2023. Now discovering this conversation, I wanted to participate by rereading passages and commenting along the way. I am in the category of being introduced to EE in the late 1950s through her missionary life; one of the many who was influenced to become a missionary through reading the stories of the five men and their wives. Living overseas, I knew almost nothing of EE's life in the US after Ecuador, with the exception of her biography of Amy Carmichael. So reading "A Life" was like reading a story for the first time!
One take-away for me is how important it is that we interact with EE's life as we see it played out. Reading this book creates significant disequilibrium that necessitates struggling with some of the more difficult paradoxes we discovered while reading "A Life." This disequilibrium needs processed to make enough sense to come to some personal resolution. It won't be the same for everyone, but we all need to be able to, in some way, live our life more authentically because of having read this amazing book.
I see I spoke too soon in my last comment! Thank you for sharing your experience with EE here. And thanks again for joining the conversation! I really, really appreciate your comment here about needing to work through her life in chronology to wrestle with the paradoxes and disequilibrium. I certainly found that to be true in writing the book, and I'm glad you're finding it helpful as a reader, as well.
Reading about your process is so great! I'm excited to keep up with your more detailed overview on your work. I'm about 60% through the book right now, and I'm absolutely devouring the rest of it.
I vaguely knew of Elisabeth and Jim Elliot through the popularity of the End of the Spear, but I really came to know her through "Passion and Purity," "Let Me Be a Woman," and her work on "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood." I have many friends who love Elliot's works on suffering and service, and I found that my skepticism of her was pretty rare. I was super excited to hear about this book because I wanted to learn how to reconcile some of these seemingly conflicting ideas of who Elliot was and what she taught. Your book has definitely helped me in that.
Since I haven't finished the whole book, I'll just share that the two most helpful things to me have been insight into Elliot's extreme self-criticism and her understanding of the specific will of God. In my Christian spheres, Elliot is almost revered as an infallible Christian, and I find so much freedom in being able to identify these as ideas that affected Elliot through her nature and her culture. I can clearly acknowledge her limitation taking guidance and encouragement through her good work.
Now, I have not gotten to the area of her life when she wrote on many of the topics that I know her for. I look forward to getting to that part in my reading and in our discussion.
I'm so pleased to hear you're planning to come along for the second book discussion club as well!
It's interesting to hear about your exposure to EE--I didn't expect it when I started research, but the more people I talk to the more it seems like people often fall into one of two camps, where they primarily know of her through the missionary story and have less awareness of her teaching, or they primarily know of her through her teaching on male-female relationships as you're describing and have less exposure to the earlier story. I'm glad the book has helped put some of the different pieces together into the bigger picture.
I had, I think, a similar experience to what you're describing in regard to the certainty that Elliot could project in her teaching and writing, realizing as I read her letters and journals that the confidence I was seeing was often the end result of a long process of uncertainty. And I like what you say, that that awareness that she's not infallible can actually free us up to hang on to what's good and encouraging in her work.
I'll look forward to hearing more of your thoughts as we go and especially as we get into the later parts.
My background knowledge of EE was mostly from her books. I became a Christian in college and she was really the first not-college-student Christian I heard Christian perspective from. I’ve read so many of her writings and her writing on suffering always blessed me and ministered to me the most.
Many of my peers sort of brushed her off because of some of her views on dating and courtship. But, I think because I loved her perspective on suffering so much, I overlooked some of her statements that I didn’t quite understand (like those on courtship and some on women). I still saw her as someone who I trusted though I didn’t always agree with her.
That being said, I was so thankful for the light the biography shed on her more controversial views. The realities of her second 2 marriages came as a shock to me, and made me so, so sad. And they also helped me understand her views on men and women a little differently. If anything, it just helped me see that her views aren’t quite as simple or black and white as her straightforward and blunt speech may make them come across.
I was familiar with her view of foreign missions from reading her books, (especially These Strange Ashes… my favorite!) and I appreciated the way your biography helped us see the timeline of how her perspective evolved.
I think my favorite part was learning about her personality. I knew she was not especially good at relating to others personally and in conversations—but I love the way the biography leaned into the fact that she was much better at communicating herself writing than she was talking. And so her true feelings mostly came out when she was writing. This made her seem very relatable! I also appreciated you highlighting so many of her deep emotions, and explaining that her love of liturgy was due to her deep feelings and earnest desire to feel the right things before God. This was so helpful and eye-opening! She was always painted by others as a stoic but I’m just not sure that’s true anymore.
Lastly, I absolutely loved that you brought out her tendency towards depression. I have experienced so much comfort from her perspective on depression and was always pleasantly surprised that she had such a nuanced and humble view of clinical depression considering some of her other views and the time period of her ministry. Knowing that she seemed to struggle with depression herself makes so much sense to me. All of this helped me love and appreciate the human side of her.
Hi Angela, thank you for sharing some of your story and history with EE!
I agree, she has some good things to say about walking through suffering. Her teaching that was recently published in book form as *Suffering Is Never for Nothing* is one I've really appreciated. And I like what you say about taking the things that are helpful and not the things that aren't.
I had a similar experience as I researched in realizing that the way she said things could make her position sound much more black and white than her experiences had been in reaching those positions and I think that ties into what you've saying about her personality and her emotions. I'm really glad to hear that those aspects of the book were meaningful to you.
While in Bible college, I read The Journals of Jim Elliot for the first time, and it instantly became my favorite book. With his dedication to careful Bible study, his deep hunger for genuine holiness, and his passionate approach to life, Jim Elliot quickly became a role model for me. I did not think much about Elisabeth Elliot until I read Devotedly by Valerie Elliot Shepard. When Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn was published, I eagerly read it. As I did with Jim Elliot from his journals, I experienced the delight and motivation of finding in Elisabeth Elliot a likeminded fellow pilgrim and a deeply inspiring picture of what it looks like to approach life as an imperfect but committed follower of Christ. Reading Elisabeth Eliot: A Life has further deepened my respect for Elliot and my fascination with her perspectives.
I was surprised to read a couple quotations from her that seemed to indicate she was at least open to Christian universalism (especially the letter to her mom in which she references Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1). I get the overall impression that in the years following Jim’s death she was much more open to theological innovation and exploration than most in the Evangelical circles in which she has become so influential. Perhaps if her theological musings were documented in a blog today, many conservative Christians would label her journey as “deconstruction.”
But it is precisely her willingness to question and reevaluate that makes her voice so fresh and necessary today. As someone who was significantly enamored and eventually disillusioned with the New Calvinism (the Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement) myself, I resonated with her brutally honest assessment of the theological fads and movements of her day. However, while she was willing to rethink and critique (perhaps too much so at times!), she remained steadfastly committed to following Jesus and faithfully representing His teaching. As Lucy S. R. Austen wrote in the post above, while Elliot’s understanding of the Christian walk and faith changed throughout her life, “her commitment to the end goal remained.” What an admirable example for those of us currently wading through the dark waters of deconstruction!
One final note: the Christian leaders and missiologists feeding the resurgence of interest in missions among the Reformed Evangelical community (think the CROSS Conference and the upcoming The Missionary Conference hosted by Radius International) tend to highlight missionaries from the past as models (such as Adoniram Judson and John G. Paton). I would love to see a greater engagement with more contemporary missionaries, i.e., Elisabeth Elliot! The life of Elisabeth Elliot in general, and Austen’s biography specifically, provide an excellent context for aspiring missionaries to begin wrestling with the urgent, complex, and often disorienting theological questions that they will face as cross-cultural workers.
Wesley, thank you for sharing your thoughts here. I do think it's an interesting question how Elliot's thinking at different times in her life would be seen in our current context, and how she would have approached social media. I'm really glad you found the book worthwhile!
I just finished Elizabeth Elliot’s biography of Amy Carmichael as well, and while I definitely noticed a thread that pointed to Amy being very confident in the word she heard from the Lord, something that would definitely feel controlling, and was not super attractive to me either, I also know that Elizabeth does make it seem that she must have been aware of this, and that as she came closer to the end of her life she was very careful to point out and say often to her family as she called them, that they were not to ask what would Amy would do, but to seek after God’s will. In some ways I really appreciate that her strong personality was brought out because I think it shows that no matter our personalities and the faults that go along with them, God uses all of us and the strength and weaknesses of our personalities to His glory if that is our true heart’s desire. I have often been comforted by this when reading the Bible, as the very same things are shown in God‘s very own word.It is very important that people not put any human being on a pedestal, or we will be disappointed for sure! And also, they become a certain sort of god to us, or on the other hand because of their admirable qualities we look and look for weaknesses and ways in which to make them like us. Which we will surely find because except for the grace of God… and Amy said this many times, it’s why she did not want to be featured, photographed, or given awards. I I have found it to be true that humans that have strong personalities and very amazing strengths often have the balancing weaknesses, it is because of the strength and the opposing weaknesses that we have the other. I think we would all do well too look at our fellow Christians and see the way in which they can point us to God, and while not protecting them when they need to be corrected for sure, allowing their struggles and weaknesses to be a way in which to draw even closer to God personally.
I’ve been looking forward to this discussion for some time. I’m glad to see it’s begun. I finished the book several weeks ago and it has stuck with me.
I likely first encountered Elisabeth Elliot in her book Gates of Splendour, back in the 1980’s, when I was in my mid-twenties and interested in missions. I ran across her again as a home-school mom in the late 90’s, as the Christian purity culture became popular. I never did read her book Passion and Purity, although I read Harris’s I Kissed Dating Good-bye with great enthusiasm. Some of my home school friends were starting to wear long skirts and sneakers and follow the teachings of Bill Gothard as well. (My husband pulled me back from being a full-blown follower of all this, and my kids eventually dated and married Christian spouses, in case you’re wondering the end of that story…) Then, sometime later, I read Elliot’s biography on Amy Carmichael, A Chance to Die. I realize many people are inspired by her life story, but I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable thought that Carmichael was a controlling woman who had to get her own way. I know she did tremendous work for the Lord and many who read it came out in awe of her, but I came out feeling deflated and still can’t warm up to Amy Carmichael . Elisabeth wasn’t one for hagiography.
I didn’t have any problem warming to Elisabeth’s personality from this biography. She came alive to me. I felt for her struggle in relationships, her bluntness and social awkwardness at times. I found her delightful and surprising (some of her book choices, for example). I found her deep love for the Lord and Scripture inspiring. I identify with the way she changed, as I also have changed, sometimes in a similar pattern to her.
What surprised me? To think that after discerning a call to missions, she eventually concluded that her mission work had come to nothing and that her calling was obedience; that her real ministry was writing and speaking. And I was surprised that it had been so awful working with Rachel Saint!
And the whole Addison Leitch story surprised me. I’d assumed he was a meek, intellectual theologian, not a brilliant, charismatic figure, and a skilled lover yet! I chuckled when I read that. And how they fell in love and Elisabeth adored him. And of course, there was the jealousy and the cancer and the dreadful suffering at the end.
I am interested in pursuing Elliot’s understanding of missions and what it means to know and do the will of God. I plan to read her book These Strange Ashes book, and perhaps the one her friend Eleanor Vandevort wrote, A Leopard Tamed, to further explore this.
I have pondered the difficulties in her third marriage and her understanding of submission. Lars wasn’t a communicator and liked to control things. Yet he was a sincere Christian, and might have benefitted from some healthy confrontation when he perhaps unknowingly steamrolled over Elisabeth. How does that fit with submission? It’s a good question for those of us who subscribe to “complementarianism.” I think spouses benefit from each others’ (ideally loving) confrontation and discussion at times.
Hi Gail, and thank you for joining the discussion! I'm glad to read some of your backstory with Elliot's writing, and I'm really interested to hear of your take-away from A Chance to Die, particularly since a lot of readers who already knew of AC thought the bio showed too many warts/wasn't adulatory enough. The chapters toward the end that describe her separation of spouses, etc., certainly seem to support your uncomfortable thought.
It's great to hear what stood out to you and that you connected with in EE: A Life, and I love that you're laying out a reading schedule to follow up. I do hope you will read Leopard--I believe there are some first editions kicking around still on AbeBooks and so on, but there's also a beautiful new 50th anniversary edition with the original illustrations (by Elliot's brother, James Howard) and introduction by EE, but also a really nice new introduction by Valerie Elliot Shepard and some new photographs.
I think you raise a very important question about how to square a good deal of teaching on what submission looks like with an understanding of what healthy communication looks like. I would love for this book to raise that question generally.
Thanks for your response Lucy! It's good to hear that others have felt A Chance to Die didn't show Carmichael in a good light. I'd read so many positive reviews that I wondered how I'd come away rather disheartened. I'll check into that 50th anniversary edition of Leopard. It sounds lovely.
Excellent! I'd be interested to hear back, if you have time and inclination, what you think once you've read it.
I'd be happy to! I've ordered both books.
Excellent!
I just finished Elizabeth Elliot’s biography of Amy Carmichael as well, and while I definitely noticed a thread that pointed to Amy being very confident in the word she heard from the Lord, something that would definitely feel controlling, and was not super attractive to me either, I also know that Elizabeth does make it seem that she must have been aware of this, and that as she came closer to the end of her life she was very careful to point out and say often to her family as she called them, that they were not to ask what would Amy would do, but to seek after God’s will. In some ways I really appreciate that her strong personality was brought out because I think it shows that no matter our personalities and the faults that go along with them, God uses all of us and the strength and weaknesses of our personalities to His glory if that is our true heart’s desire. I have often been comforted by this when reading the Bible, as the very same things are shown in God‘s very own word.It is very important that people not put any human being on a pedestal, or we will be disappointed for sure! And also, they become a certain sort of god to us, or on the other hand because of their admirable qualities we look and look for weaknesses and ways in which to make them like us. Which we will surely find because except for the grace of God… and Amy said this many times, it’s why she did not want to be featured, photographed, or given awards. I I have found it to be true that humans that have strong personalities and very amazing strengths often have the balancing weaknesses, it is because of the strength and the opposing weaknesses that we have the other. I think we would all do well too look at our fellow Christians and see the way in which they can point us to God, and while not protecting them when they need to be corrected for sure, allowing their struggles and weaknesses to be a way in which to draw even closer to God personally.
I just finished Elizabeth Elliot’s biography of Amy Carmichael as well, and while I definitely noticed a thread that pointed to Amy being very confident in the word she heard from the Lord, something that would definitely feel controlling, and was not super attractive to me either, I also know that Elizabeth does make it seem that she must have been aware of this, and that as she came closer to the end of her life she was very careful to point out and say often to her family as she called them, that they were not to ask what would Amy would do, but to seek after God’s will. In some ways I really appreciate that her strong personality was brought out because I think it shows that no matter our personalities and the faults that go along with them, God uses all of us and the strength and weaknesses of our personalities to His glory if that is our true heart’s desire. I have often been comforted by this when reading the Bible, as the very same things are shown in God‘s very own word.It is very important that people not put any human being on a pedestal, or we will be disappointed for sure! And also, they become a certain sort of god to us, or on the other hand because of their admirable qualities we look and look for weaknesses and ways in which to make them like us. Which we will surely find because except for the grace of God… and Amy said this many times, it’s why she did not want to be featured, photographed, or given awards. I I have found it to be true that humans that have strong personalities and very amazing strengths often have the balancing weaknesses, it is because of the strength and the opposing weaknesses that we have the other. I think we would all do well too look at our fellow Christians and see the way in which they can point us to God, and while not protecting them when they need to be corrected for sure, allowing their struggles and weaknesses to be a way in which to draw even closer to God personally.
What a great idea to pair their two biographies--lots of food for thought to be found there! I think it is an eternal challenge to hold all of the parts of a person in tension, whether that person is "famous," or a housemate, or our own self. It's so difficult not to either weight the bad more heavily, and reject people, or to weight the good nore heavily, and fail to address harm. May God help us to live in the tension!
Thanks Heather, for your comments on Amy's strong personality. They do help me get a better perspective.
I just finished Elizabeth Elliot’s biography of Amy Carmichael as well, and while I definitely noticed a thread that pointed to Amy being very confident in the word she heard from the Lord, something that would definitely feel controlling, and was not super attractive to me either, I also know that Elizabeth does make it seem that she must have been aware of this, and that as she came closer to the end of her life she was very careful to point out and say often to her family as she called them, that they were not to ask what would Amy would do, but to seek after God’s will. In some ways I really appreciate that her strong personality was brought out because I think it shows that no matter our personalities and the faults that go along with them, God uses all of us and the strength and weaknesses of our personalities to His glory if that is our true heart’s desire. I have often been comforted by this when reading the Bible, as the very same things are shown in God‘s very own word.It is very important that people not put any human being on a pedestal, or we will be disappointed for sure! And also, they become a certain sort of god to us, or on the other hand because of their admirable qualities we look and look for weaknesses and ways in which to make them like us. Which we will surely find because except for the grace of God… and Amy said this many times, it’s why she did not want to be featured, photographed, or given awards. I I have found it to be true that humans that have strong personalities and very amazing strengths often have the balancing weaknesses, it is because of the strength and the opposing weaknesses that we have the other. I think we would all do well too look at our fellow Christians and see the way in which they can point us to God, and while not protecting them when they need to be corrected for sure, allowing their struggles and weaknesses to be a way in which to draw even closer to God personally.
I LOVED reading more about your process and seeing the complicated vision board and reams of paper you had to dig through. I'm one of those relics who has read everything Elisabeth wrote and still have a file folder with a good number of her newsletters. She was and continues to be a "book mentor" to me through her writing. I had also read her friend Van's book with its controversial thoughts on the mindset of 20th century missions, so I wasn't surprised by Elisabeth's thinking on the topic.
I think that only someone with both Elisabeth's personality and upbringing could have pulled off the life she ultimately inhabited. Not many of us would choose Isaiah 50:7 as a life verse because our faces don't have a sufficient supply of flint for the job. That may not have been a good thing for Elisabeth when all is said and done.
I came away from your book (and from volume 2 of Ellen Vaughn's bio) saddened for the heaviness of some of EE's disappointments and inconsistencies, but even more grateful for the grace that I receive for my own.
Michele, I'm so glad! And glad you've read Leopard--I think it's a good one.
Thinking about what you say about a supply of flint, one of the things I wrestle with is discerning what's the "taking up our cross" that we're all called to and what legitimately varies because different people are made with different amounts of flint. I'm thankful for her steadfastness across the arc of her life even as I disagree with her understanding of what obedience meant in some instances.
And I am right there with you, both on the heaviness and sadness, and on being thankful for grace. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I love how this post takes us into the process. Showing the chapter mapped out with the vision board was fascinating!
Thanks! I'm glad to hear that!
Yes! I feel that I can be controlling or dominating person at times and it is helpful to see that regardless of our weaknesses or simply other’s response to our personalities really, that God prevails and He is glorified.
I'm belatedly joining the conversation, having read "Elisabeth Elliot: A Life" in September, 2023. Now discovering this conversation, I wanted to participate by rereading passages and commenting along the way. I am in the category of being introduced to EE in the late 1950s through her missionary life; one of the many who was influenced to become a missionary through reading the stories of the five men and their wives. Living overseas, I knew almost nothing of EE's life in the US after Ecuador, with the exception of her biography of Amy Carmichael. So reading "A Life" was like reading a story for the first time!
One take-away for me is how important it is that we interact with EE's life as we see it played out. Reading this book creates significant disequilibrium that necessitates struggling with some of the more difficult paradoxes we discovered while reading "A Life." This disequilibrium needs processed to make enough sense to come to some personal resolution. It won't be the same for everyone, but we all need to be able to, in some way, live our life more authentically because of having read this amazing book.
I see I spoke too soon in my last comment! Thank you for sharing your experience with EE here. And thanks again for joining the conversation! I really, really appreciate your comment here about needing to work through her life in chronology to wrestle with the paradoxes and disequilibrium. I certainly found that to be true in writing the book, and I'm glad you're finding it helpful as a reader, as well.
Reading about your process is so great! I'm excited to keep up with your more detailed overview on your work. I'm about 60% through the book right now, and I'm absolutely devouring the rest of it.
I vaguely knew of Elisabeth and Jim Elliot through the popularity of the End of the Spear, but I really came to know her through "Passion and Purity," "Let Me Be a Woman," and her work on "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood." I have many friends who love Elliot's works on suffering and service, and I found that my skepticism of her was pretty rare. I was super excited to hear about this book because I wanted to learn how to reconcile some of these seemingly conflicting ideas of who Elliot was and what she taught. Your book has definitely helped me in that.
Since I haven't finished the whole book, I'll just share that the two most helpful things to me have been insight into Elliot's extreme self-criticism and her understanding of the specific will of God. In my Christian spheres, Elliot is almost revered as an infallible Christian, and I find so much freedom in being able to identify these as ideas that affected Elliot through her nature and her culture. I can clearly acknowledge her limitation taking guidance and encouragement through her good work.
Now, I have not gotten to the area of her life when she wrote on many of the topics that I know her for. I look forward to getting to that part in my reading and in our discussion.
Thanks so much for doing this! 💜
I'm so pleased to hear you're planning to come along for the second book discussion club as well!
It's interesting to hear about your exposure to EE--I didn't expect it when I started research, but the more people I talk to the more it seems like people often fall into one of two camps, where they primarily know of her through the missionary story and have less awareness of her teaching, or they primarily know of her through her teaching on male-female relationships as you're describing and have less exposure to the earlier story. I'm glad the book has helped put some of the different pieces together into the bigger picture.
I had, I think, a similar experience to what you're describing in regard to the certainty that Elliot could project in her teaching and writing, realizing as I read her letters and journals that the confidence I was seeing was often the end result of a long process of uncertainty. And I like what you say, that that awareness that she's not infallible can actually free us up to hang on to what's good and encouraging in her work.
I'll look forward to hearing more of your thoughts as we go and especially as we get into the later parts.
My background knowledge of EE was mostly from her books. I became a Christian in college and she was really the first not-college-student Christian I heard Christian perspective from. I’ve read so many of her writings and her writing on suffering always blessed me and ministered to me the most.
Many of my peers sort of brushed her off because of some of her views on dating and courtship. But, I think because I loved her perspective on suffering so much, I overlooked some of her statements that I didn’t quite understand (like those on courtship and some on women). I still saw her as someone who I trusted though I didn’t always agree with her.
That being said, I was so thankful for the light the biography shed on her more controversial views. The realities of her second 2 marriages came as a shock to me, and made me so, so sad. And they also helped me understand her views on men and women a little differently. If anything, it just helped me see that her views aren’t quite as simple or black and white as her straightforward and blunt speech may make them come across.
I was familiar with her view of foreign missions from reading her books, (especially These Strange Ashes… my favorite!) and I appreciated the way your biography helped us see the timeline of how her perspective evolved.
I think my favorite part was learning about her personality. I knew she was not especially good at relating to others personally and in conversations—but I love the way the biography leaned into the fact that she was much better at communicating herself writing than she was talking. And so her true feelings mostly came out when she was writing. This made her seem very relatable! I also appreciated you highlighting so many of her deep emotions, and explaining that her love of liturgy was due to her deep feelings and earnest desire to feel the right things before God. This was so helpful and eye-opening! She was always painted by others as a stoic but I’m just not sure that’s true anymore.
Lastly, I absolutely loved that you brought out her tendency towards depression. I have experienced so much comfort from her perspective on depression and was always pleasantly surprised that she had such a nuanced and humble view of clinical depression considering some of her other views and the time period of her ministry. Knowing that she seemed to struggle with depression herself makes so much sense to me. All of this helped me love and appreciate the human side of her.
Hi Angela, thank you for sharing some of your story and history with EE!
I agree, she has some good things to say about walking through suffering. Her teaching that was recently published in book form as *Suffering Is Never for Nothing* is one I've really appreciated. And I like what you say about taking the things that are helpful and not the things that aren't.
I had a similar experience as I researched in realizing that the way she said things could make her position sound much more black and white than her experiences had been in reaching those positions and I think that ties into what you've saying about her personality and her emotions. I'm really glad to hear that those aspects of the book were meaningful to you.
While in Bible college, I read The Journals of Jim Elliot for the first time, and it instantly became my favorite book. With his dedication to careful Bible study, his deep hunger for genuine holiness, and his passionate approach to life, Jim Elliot quickly became a role model for me. I did not think much about Elisabeth Elliot until I read Devotedly by Valerie Elliot Shepard. When Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn was published, I eagerly read it. As I did with Jim Elliot from his journals, I experienced the delight and motivation of finding in Elisabeth Elliot a likeminded fellow pilgrim and a deeply inspiring picture of what it looks like to approach life as an imperfect but committed follower of Christ. Reading Elisabeth Eliot: A Life has further deepened my respect for Elliot and my fascination with her perspectives.
I was surprised to read a couple quotations from her that seemed to indicate she was at least open to Christian universalism (especially the letter to her mom in which she references Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1). I get the overall impression that in the years following Jim’s death she was much more open to theological innovation and exploration than most in the Evangelical circles in which she has become so influential. Perhaps if her theological musings were documented in a blog today, many conservative Christians would label her journey as “deconstruction.”
But it is precisely her willingness to question and reevaluate that makes her voice so fresh and necessary today. As someone who was significantly enamored and eventually disillusioned with the New Calvinism (the Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement) myself, I resonated with her brutally honest assessment of the theological fads and movements of her day. However, while she was willing to rethink and critique (perhaps too much so at times!), she remained steadfastly committed to following Jesus and faithfully representing His teaching. As Lucy S. R. Austen wrote in the post above, while Elliot’s understanding of the Christian walk and faith changed throughout her life, “her commitment to the end goal remained.” What an admirable example for those of us currently wading through the dark waters of deconstruction!
One final note: the Christian leaders and missiologists feeding the resurgence of interest in missions among the Reformed Evangelical community (think the CROSS Conference and the upcoming The Missionary Conference hosted by Radius International) tend to highlight missionaries from the past as models (such as Adoniram Judson and John G. Paton). I would love to see a greater engagement with more contemporary missionaries, i.e., Elisabeth Elliot! The life of Elisabeth Elliot in general, and Austen’s biography specifically, provide an excellent context for aspiring missionaries to begin wrestling with the urgent, complex, and often disorienting theological questions that they will face as cross-cultural workers.
Wesley, thank you for sharing your thoughts here. I do think it's an interesting question how Elliot's thinking at different times in her life would be seen in our current context, and how she would have approached social media. I'm really glad you found the book worthwhile!
I just finished Elizabeth Elliot’s biography of Amy Carmichael as well, and while I definitely noticed a thread that pointed to Amy being very confident in the word she heard from the Lord, something that would definitely feel controlling, and was not super attractive to me either, I also know that Elizabeth does make it seem that she must have been aware of this, and that as she came closer to the end of her life she was very careful to point out and say often to her family as she called them, that they were not to ask what would Amy would do, but to seek after God’s will. In some ways I really appreciate that her strong personality was brought out because I think it shows that no matter our personalities and the faults that go along with them, God uses all of us and the strength and weaknesses of our personalities to His glory if that is our true heart’s desire. I have often been comforted by this when reading the Bible, as the very same things are shown in God‘s very own word.It is very important that people not put any human being on a pedestal, or we will be disappointed for sure! And also, they become a certain sort of god to us, or on the other hand because of their admirable qualities we look and look for weaknesses and ways in which to make them like us. Which we will surely find because except for the grace of God… and Amy said this many times, it’s why she did not want to be featured, photographed, or given awards. I I have found it to be true that humans that have strong personalities and very amazing strengths often have the balancing weaknesses, it is because of the strength and the opposing weaknesses that we have the other. I think we would all do well too look at our fellow Christians and see the way in which they can point us to God, and while not protecting them when they need to be corrected for sure, allowing their struggles and weaknesses to be a way in which to draw even closer to God personally.