Title: From Pagan to Christian
Description: I am hardly qualified to make a description of a book which was written by one of China's most inspired and educated philosophers, but seeing as I am the first to do so; I'd say it was a rather odd little book.  
I found it at a tiny second hand shop and after flipping through the pages I decided that I would not read it.  So it joined all the other books I'd found but decided that either I was not ready or the book was just to dry to quench my thirst.
It took me quite a few years to finally open it's hard black cover and what I read was simple, enchanting and very intimate.  
Seeing as I have a very basic education much of what he was writing about was at first a little too much to hold, but gradually and even after reading it in reverse.  Seriously!  I suddenly found myself being drawn in and led along so many interesting pathways. Pathways that Lin was obviously more than familiar with, having lived in and been a part of a very different world to the one I was raised in.  In short his writing might be a little dry at times but it's not a book for the casual reader.  
It's a book that's going to strip you down one layer at a time, as he goes to the wall and beyond and leaves one halted in front of a very different sort of Jesus from the one you might come across in a modern day evangelical meeting.  His Jesus is one who might actually be more comfortable in an Emergent Church or New Atheist gathering and I think this is so because he has dropped the traditional picture presented by Creeds, Confessions and the like and gone off in search of 'the majestic force of love'  which  transformed those early disciples into world changers.
 
I'd love to have met Lin and perhaps if God is gracious I will meet him in the next world and find out if his thoughts matched the reality.

Lovingly,
Eric J. Sawyer
Subjects: Lin Yutang, Philosophy, Religion, Poetry, Buddhism, Toaism, Christianity, Jesus
Places: China, Japan, England
People: Laotse, Confucius, Jesus Christ
Time periods: 1895-1960