Randy Alcorn - "Lord Foulgrin's Letters"

     Ok, so I admit, I bought this book not, because of a desire to grow my spiritual life, but merely because I shared his last name for 26 years of my life.  For all of 30 seconds, I felt famous.  Shallow?  Maybe, but it was still worth reading...

Lord Foulgrin's Letters

     This book was written in the same vein as C.S. Lewis's, "Screwtape Letters," which I do own, and DO intend to read; I've just not quite gotten there yet.  This is the story of Jordan Fletcher and his family.  Each everyday vignette is followed by a letter from Lord Foulgrin to his subordinate Squaltaint instructing him to destroy, confuse, deceive, and distract Jordan and his family at every opportunity.  Squaltaint is specifically assigned to Jordan to keep him from learning the truth about God, to distract Mr. Fletcher from doing anything that would honor the Lord, as well as to do anything to destroy "the maggot-feeder" in all areas of life.

     The author writes in the Afterward that he has spent much time in prayer and Biblical study regarding fallen angels, their abilities, their motivations, as well as their realm.  He also   As with anything in the spiritual realm, it's hard to translate it into words.  As Mr. Alcorn states, he does his absolute best to present his work truthfully, but he is human and thus prone to error, so don't take this work of fiction as truth.  He also quotes G.C. Berkouwer saying, "There can be no sound theology without a sound demonology."  I think there is something to that; one must understand their enemy in order to oppose him. 

     I think that while this isn't totally an original idea for a book, it is very creative.  I personally had a little bit of a hard time with some of the book, not too much with the content, but with his style of writing.  It was a little cliche' for my taste.  There were a very few ideas/statements that I thought were a little on the "overly conservative" side of the spectrum, but there's nothing wrong with that at all, it's merely my humble opinion of things.  Overall I think it's worth reading just to give you a different perspective on the battle in which we are entrenched, but from which we will one day emerge victoriously. 

     Amen and let it be so!