‘Scared’ free eBook Download – A Novel Idea that’s Helping Kids

– Extended for Two Final Days! Share Scared with your friends & Download a Free Copy ‘Till July 15! –

In 1896, Charles Sheldon wrote In His Steps, a novel telling the story of a group of people committed to living out God’s dreams for love & justice amid an indifferent world. The publishers failed to properly register the copyright of this book, making it go ‘viral’ as eager readers and unscrupulous other publishers alike spread unauthorized copies around like wildfire. [Tacky WWJD bracelets in the 1990s being one of the lingering and unfortunate side-effects. But I digress…]

113 years later, author and activist Tom Davis has released Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World. It, too, tells a true-to-life story of West-meets-global south; a compelling and all-too-likely scenario of orphan children in Swaziland and across the African continent, with a tantalizingly-possible (and hope-filled) conclusion. It’s a page-turner, and the perfect summer read.

Scared’s copyright is secure, but Davis and his publisher, David C. Cook, are tapping into the viral spirit of In His Steps: from now until July 10 15, you may download an full-length copy of Scared, free of charge, if you share the free download news with three friends.

[Your three friends will get a one-time email inviting them to also download & share; their email addresses are not stored and they will not receive further communication if they do not download the book. Spam = Evil.]

I’ve been privileged to be part of this ‘global street team’ for Scared. We hope you’ll like – perhaps ‘like’ is the wrong word, be compelled by –  the download so much that you’ll buy a physical copy (or two) at your local bookstore, to read and share with friends. Why? In addition to being a terrific read, Davis’s nonprofit, Children’s HopeChest, is raising $1 million to support educational projects in Swaziland. They are also running a contest for Swazi orphans! The grand prize? A university scholarship. Your purchase will help this effort.

But first – give Scared a free read and tell your friends! You can do both right here. And if you’d like, you can also spread the word on Facebook via Scared‘s just-minted Fan page.

Narcissism & the True Self: Deliver Us From Me-Ville

Ah, self. Such a wonderful, complicated idea. Does the ‘self’ even exist? Descartes says yes; many postmodern deconstructors say ‘no.’ Even amongst spiritual people, who in the main affirm the idea of ‘self,’ there is much dissonance as to its overall value – is it something to be ‘denied,’ or celebrated, or transcended to reach what Thomas Merton and others call the ‘true self.’

IVP’s Likewise editor Dave Zimmerman pulled a crossover special and published a book with David C. Cook (One way to separate public vocational and personal life, I suppose) addressing this enigma head-on, in what should take the prize as 2008’s funnest title – Deliver Us from Me-Ville.

In it Zimmerman (a heck of a nice guy, by the way) takes a sympathetic look at western culture’s paradoxical obsession with and loathing of Self. As he recently said on his personal blog,

In writing Deliver Us from Me-Ville I took great encouragement from Dietrich Bonhoeffer´s description of Christ as pro-me. It´s a nice foundation on which to build a critique of self-absorption: Jesus is for us enough to become us and join with us, then separate our sin from us and die for us, then resurrect to us and go on ahead of us to prepare a place for us.

Honoring God’s view of human selves as created in the imago dei but in need of maturation puts us at odds with prevailing culture’s praise of the individual, ambivalent virtues like pride and self-esteem.

How are we best supposed to function? Can we peer throough the mystery into God’s heart? Zimmerman takes readers on a guided tour through Scripture to show how God has changed people who thought it was all about them. Throughout the book he shares practical steps to help us take the focus off of our ‘false self’ and onto others, as a lens pointing to God as subtext and context of a grounded self-with-others.

Here’s a great video intro of the book, by Zimmerman. In it he tells the story of how he married his niece – oh my!