Journal: Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
Volume: JOTGES 16:2 (Autumn 2003)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

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JOTGES 16:2 (Autumn 03) p. 79

Book Reviews

In the Presence of My Enemies. By Gracia Burnham with Dean Merrill. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 2003. 307 pp. Cloth. $22.99.

Martin and Gracia (pronounced “gray-sha”) Burnham became known worldwide. This book tells the story of their kidnapping and being held hostage for one year and eleven days. It also tells of their courtship, marriage, and ministry prior to being captured.

The Burnhams were missionaries in the Philippines with New Tribes Mission. That organization was founded by Doc Latham and is solidly in the Free Grace camp.

This is not a theological book. Rather, it is as the cover suggests, “A gripping account of the kidnapping of American missionaries and their year of terror in the Philippine jungle.”

Gracia shows how the Muslims who held them, as well as all Muslims, are striving for eternal life based on their works. She writes, “Muhammad will intercede with Allah, who will judge humanity, consigning those with good deeds to paradise and condemning those who fall short to hell—unless they were fallen mujahideen, those who had died in holy war and were thus already rewarded” (p. 152).

She then concludes: “With this way of thinking, clearly the odds of reaching paradise were slim to none.”

Gracia makes it clear that she and Martin prayed regularly for their captors and that on at least one occasion they told them that Jesus died for our sins (p. 151). One of their captors responded, “I don’t want anybody paying for my sin. I’ll do my own paying” (p. 151).

Martin witnessed to one of the captives, Guillermo, whom it appeared the Abu Sayyaf were about to kill. Martin told Guillermo that “we can’t save ourselves and that without God’s mercy, we all face eternal death” (p. 108).

I found it very difficult to find in the book where Gracia clearly told what one must do to escape eternal death and have eternal life. When recounting her own testimony she said, “When I was seven or eight, I had a wonderful Sunday school teacher who explained to me

JOTGES 16:2 (Autumn 03) p. 80

the importance of committing my life to Christ. Not long after that, I remember begging for the opportunity to be baptized” (p. 22, italics added). I was surprised that she used confusing language like that to describe her own new birth. (See also pp. 142-43.)

The clearest statements she makes are found when one Sunday she wrote down a list of promises she could remember from God’s Word. Ninth in this long list was, “He that believeth in Me, tho dead, shall live” (p. 185). Seventeenth on the list was, ...

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