How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig (Susan Macaulay)
Susan Schaeffer Macaulay tells magnificent stories. Some humorous, others poignant, but all true and all designed to carefully uncover what is real. She takes a close look at Christian faith and other faiths, believing that whatever is actually real can handle close examination without falling apart. Gently and penetratingly, she unmasks the astonishing fit between the Biblical text and the world in which we live. What an interesting idea: God’s words and God’s world match!
Macaulay not only tells great stories, she asks great questions. Weighty, difficult issues about the existence and character of God are examined with insight, clarity, and wit. Her words can penetrate a junior-higher’s heart, unsettle a grizzled over-the-hill skeptic, and pull at the heart of a lost soul seeking something solid on which to stand. Here are real-world thoughts told with no-nonsense, down-to-earth, entertaining (yet deeply serious) words.
I love her style. She doesn’t argue or push or defend or try to impress with fancy theology. Rather, she just talks with us. She tells about a Hindu who says there’s no difference between pain and pleasure…but has no answer (except to leave the room) when someone holding a steaming teapot asks if it would be okay to pour it on his head. She quotes Woody Allen who says “If reality is an illusion then I definitely overpaid for my carpet.” She engages us with thought provoking questions that encourage us to examine what we believe and decide if our beliefs match the world in which we live.
Her point? If we define reality differently than God does we’re not going to be able to live out what we believe. Why? Because unbiblical beliefs will, when examined, always contradict the world that surrounds us.
I tell her stories to others often. I have so many of them stored in my head, I think I’ve almost memorized her book. It’s that good. Read it yourself. Share it with all sorts of people. It triggers great discussions.
How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig (by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay)
David C. Cook Publishing Co., 1982
Book Review by Lynne Fox, © 2015
biblegrapes.com
I love the book 🙂
Glad you do. I love it also and tell people about it frequently.
Thanks, Lynne, for the review. Sounds like a book to put on my list.–Susan
You’re welcome. I think you’ll enjoy reading it (and I hope your list isn’t as long as mine!).