Savonarola, Man on Fire--newest biography, coming soon!

Forthcoming new biography

It's been a delight researching and writing about the fascinating and complicated pre-reformer, Girolamo Savonarola. This is my first co-authored book, with INKBLOTS founder and friend Doug McComas. And this book marks another first: I have occasionally made artist recommendations on my other books, but I have never had a publisher bite the hook on one of my artist suggestions--until now! Sarah Bye, artist extraordinaire, has created a vivid and human depiction of the man and of Florence his home, and where he was martyred, and Evangelical Press loved it. The book will release very soon.

Here is an excerpt from the opening chapter:

“Siamo perduti!” The cry echoed off the marble statues and fine stonework of the streets and plazas of Florence, Italy. “We are ruined!” What Florentines feared had come upon them. It was September 21, 1494 and the birthplace of the Renaissance was paralyzed with dread. Greedy for blood, the army of the king of France had crossed the Alps and was on the march to Florence. In a matter of days Charles VIII’s soldiers would be thundering at the gates of the city. 

"The expedition of Charles VIII into Italy," wrote Edward Gibbon, "changed the face of Europe." In those gut-wrenching days, Florentine mothers and children cared little for what happened to the face of Europe. But they were horrified for their own lives. In despair, they crowded into the cathedral church of Santa Maria del Fiore, long-awaited innovation of the architectural genius, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446). The Duomo had become the virtual symbol of the Renaissance. Since its completion in 1436, the cathedral’s dome remains the largest masonry dome in the world, the grand marvel not only of the city but of the entire cultural movement. One awed contemporary said the Duomo was "vast enough to cover the entire Tuscan population with its shadow."

With lecherous French soldiers slavering at her gates, terrified Florentines sought refuge under that vast dome. They had gathered to hear the prior of San Marco, the fiery preacher who had expelled the Medicis and their tyrannies. That man was Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498).

When Savonarola ascended the high pulpit, his congregation—numb with fear—longed for some words of comfort from his lips. He looked out on their upturned faces. “For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth,” the Dominican friar gave out his text, “to destroy all flesh” (Genesis 6:17). The somber manner in which he read the sacred words sent a shudder through every man, woman, and child that stood before him. Eyewitness to the sermon, philosopher Pico della Mirandola said that Savonarola’s terrifying words made his hair to stand on end. And with the preacher’s every word, the French army came on to their destruction—just as he had prophesied.

SAVONAROLA’S WORLD

Savonarola’s world reads like the guest list at a royal banquet, a veritable who’s who of celebrated personages. He breathed the air of the famous and the infamous, the notable and the notorious, the gifted and the great.

 
Born in Ferrara in 1452, he shared a birth year with Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. As Savonarola’s mother labored to deliver her son...

Was TOPLADY a theological monster or a saint? Find out in my new biography

New book with Evangelical Press (UK)

I was so blessed in writing this concise biography of Augustus Toplady. Visit my TOPLADY web page featuring other readings and more on my new book AUGUSTUS TOPLADY, Debtor to Mercy Alone, now available with Evangelical Press. After you read the Introduction posted there, listen to an audio excerpt from chapter 4. Read an excerpt below on this post from the chapter that picks up right after the audio. 

"I vividly recall the sweetness and joy of Toplady's diary when I first read it more than twenty years ago now. Douglas Bond has ably captured the man and his faith in this brief biography. Warmly recommended!" Michael Haykin, Professor of Church History, Southern Seminary. 

  

You can order a signed copy of the book at my webstore, www.bondbooks.net, or you can order a hard copy or Kindle edition at TOPLADY.

 5

A Praying Life

“My God, I want the inwrought prayer,” cried Toplady, “the prayer of the heart, wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost.” So much of the recorded praying of Toplady reflects just that, praying from the lips of a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit, whose prayers are being sanctified by the immediate presence of the God to whom he is praying. Thankfully for us, Toplady developed the habit of copying down his prayers probably as he prayed them. But there is nothing of the pompous Pharisee strutting in prayer to be seen or heard by men. His prayers are the kind of Psalm-like communing with God every Christian desires.

DISTRACTION AND WANDERING IN PRAYER

But let’s face it, communing with God, the activity that occupied so much of Toplady’s days and hours, is profoundly foreign to most of us. When we do get around to quieting our hearts and falling to our knees in prayer, one distraction after another begins its assault on our receiving consciousness. A text message warbles in our pocket. The telephone rings, and we strain to recognize the voice leaving a message. The computer intones the audio signal that a new email has just arrived. We wonder who it’s from. An aid vehicle roars by, siren blaring. A sleepy child crawls onto our back for a cuddle. The hotpot clicks off and we begin hastily rifling out our petitions so as to get the tea steeping while the water is at its hottest. Tea is always better when the water is at its hottest.

If me manage to negotiate the minefield of information technology and toddlers, and we actually get around to praying for real needs, we may find ourselves—often long minutes later—musing on how those parents could have let their son or daughter get involved with the wrong crowd in the first place. Clearly they messed up. If only they had raised their children the way we have raised ours. And when we finally shake our self free of those thoughts, and return shamefaced again to confession and asking for still more forgiveness, there’s the particular problem men have with praying. We men think we can take care of things, solve the problem. We don’t like stopping and asking for help. We can handle this. We’re men. It’s what we do.

When we attempt to get down to the serious business of praying, at best we are too hasty, and at worst we may actually be taking the Lord’s name in vain and compounding our sinning. It is for these reasons that Toplady’s praying is so valuable for distracted moderns. Though many of our 21^st century distractions would have been completely foreign to Toplady, we should not fool ourselves. He was a man subject to many of the same challenges we face with prayer. “Was afflicted with wandering in private prayer. Lord, melt down my icy heart, and grant me to wait upon thee.” How often would Toplady’s confession not be an accurate description of our praying life? And like you and me, this would not be the last time he would have reason to long for greater constancy in prayer. In a diary entry dated Monday, December 14, 1767, he reminds us that neglecting prayer has direct consequences:   

Before I came out of my chamber today, I was too hasty and short in private prayer. My conscience told me so at the time; and yet, such was my ingratitude and my folly, that I nevertheless restrained prayer before God. In the course of the day, I had great reason to repent of my first sin, by being permitted to fall into another.

It is just, O Lord, that thou shouldest withdraw thy presence from one who waited so carelessly on thee. May I never more, on any pretext whatever, rob thee (or rather, deprive my own soul) of thy due worship; but make all things else give way to communion with thee!

HONEST SELF-ABASEMENT

In a culture destroying itself with the cult of self-esteem, Toplady often prayed in a way that sounds foreign to our ears:

Who am I, O Lord? The weakest and vilest of all thy called ones: not only the least of saints, but the chiefest of sinners. But though a sinner, yet sanctified, in part, by the Holy Ghost given unto me. I should wrong the work of His grace upon my heart, were I to deny my regeneration: but, Lord, I wish for a nearer conformity to thy image.

So unaccustomed are we to hearing someone speak of himself as “the weakest and vilest of all thy called ones,” we might be tempted to dismiss Toplady’s self-deprecation as false humility, an elaborate charade...

New Biography of Savonarola Off to Publisher (EP)

This is my first co-authored book, and what a delightful experience it has been to collaborate with my friend and colleague, Douglas McComas, founder of INKBLOTS! The book is part of the short biography series published by Evangelical Press (EP) in the UK, with Michael Haykin in the role of series editor (the same series as my biography on Augustus Toplady). We found Savonarola's life fascinating.  He was one of the pre-Reformers God raised up in the 15th-century to prepare the way for men like Luther and Calvin in the Reformation. But it was a rough time for him.

As we read Savonarola, it's no exaggeration to say that we fell in love with this flawed but deeply passionate lover of Christ. How could we not do so with a man who prayed like this,  “O Lord! Arise, and come to deliver thy Church from the hands of devils, from the hands of tyrants, from the hands of iniquitous prelates.”

In his prison meditations the night before his martyrdom, Savonarola wrestled with himself in soliloquy, “Do you have faith?  Yes I have it. Good: this is a great grace of God, for faith comes of his gift, not of your works, that no one may glory in them.” And that from the pen of a Dominican friar. Though not fully orbed in his theology, we found Savonarola not only to be on a trajectory away from medieval synergism, but growing clearer and clearer about the doctrines of free grace in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One of my readers said after reading a draft, "Your portrayal of Savonarola himself succeeded in that test of a multi-dimensional figure, towering in his allegiance to Christ and cross but yet flawed, a bit irascible yet brilliant, fervent yet failing according to...well, Machiavellian standards. Fascinating!" 

We found Savonarola's life to be exciting, dangerous, and tragic--but ultimately a triumphant one. All by grace alone, with his mind and heart riveted on Christ Jesus alone.

Read an excerpt and learn more. Audio excerpt coming soon...

Pre-Release readings and audio of my forthcoming book on AUGUSTUS TOPLADY

I was so blessed in writing this concise biography of Augustus Toplady. Thank you David Woolin (EP's wear-many-hats dude in the UK) for asking me to do it! Big thanks to the Spear clan for beating up another manuscript for me. Visit my new web page featuring just posted material on my forthcoming book on AUGUSTUS TOPLADY, Debtor to Mercy Alone, to release with Evangelical Press sometime in 2012. After you read the Introduction, listen to an audio excerpt from chapter 4. If you would like to get more of the book, read on below from the chapter that picks up right after the audio.

 5

A Praying Life

 “My God, I want the inwrought prayer,” cried Toplady, “the prayer of the heart, wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost.” So much of the recorded praying of Toplady reflects just that, praying from the lips of a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit, whose prayers are being sanctified by the immediate presence of the God to whom he is praying. Thankfully for us, Toplady developed the habit of copying down his prayers probably as he prayed them. But there is nothing of the pompous Pharisee strutting in prayer to be seen or heard by men. His prayers are the kind of Psalm-like communing with God every Christian desires.

DISTRACTION AND WANDERING IN PRAYER

But let’s face it, communing with God, the activity that occupied so much of Toplady’s days and hours, is profoundly foreign to most of us. When we do get around to quieting our hearts and falling to our knees in prayer, one distraction after another begins its assault on our receiving consciousness. A text message warbles in our pocket. The telephone rings, and we strain to recognize the voice leaving a message. The computer intones the audio signal that a new email has just arrived. We wonder who it’s from. An aid vehicle roars by, siren blaring. A sleepy child crawls onto our back for a cuddle. The hotpot clicks off and we begin hastily rifling out our petitions so as to get the tea steeping while the water is at its hottest. Tea is always better when the water is at its hottest.

If me manage to negotiate the minefield of information technology and toddlers, and we actually get around to praying for real needs, we may find ourselves—often long minutes later—musing on how those parents could have let their son or daughter get involved with the wrong crowd in the first place. Clearly they messed up. If only they had raised their children the way we have raised ours. And when we finally shake our self free of those thoughts, and return shamefaced again to confession and asking for still more forgiveness, there’s the particular problem men have with praying. We men think we can take care of things, solve the problem. We don’t like stopping and asking for help. We can handle this. We’re men. It’s what we do.

When we attempt to get down to the serious business of praying, at best we are too hasty, and at worst we may actually be taking the Lord’s name in vain and compounding our sinning. It is for these reasons that Toplady’s praying is so valuable for distracted moderns. Though many of our 21^st century distractions would have been completely foreign to Toplady, we should not fool ourselves. He was a man subject to many of the same challenges we face with prayer. “Was afflicted with wandering in private prayer. Lord, melt down my icy heart, and grant me to wait upon thee.” How often would Toplady’s confession not be an accurate description of our praying life? And like you and me, this would not be the last time he would have reason to long for greater constancy in prayer. In a diary entry dated Monday, December 14, 1767, he reminds us that neglecting prayer has direct consequences:   

Before I came out of my chamber today, I was too hasty and short in private prayer. My conscience told me so at the time; and yet, such was my ingratitude and my folly, that I nevertheless restrained prayer before God. In the course of the day, I had great reason to repent of my first sin, by being permitted to fall into another.

It is just, O Lord, that thou shouldest withdraw thy presence from one who waited so carelessly on thee. May I never more, on any pretext whatever, rob thee (or rather, deprive my own soul) of thy due worship; but make all things else give way to communion with thee!

HONEST SELF-ABASEMENT

In a culture destroying itself with the cult of self-esteem, Toplady often prayed in a way that sounds foreign to our ears:

Who am I, O Lord? The weakest and vilest of all thy called ones: not only the least of saints, but the chiefest of sinners. But though a sinner, yet sanctified, in part, by the Holy Ghost given unto me. I should wrong the work of His grace upon my heart, were I to deny my regeneration: but, Lord, I wish for a nearer conformity to thy image.

So unaccustomed are we to hearing someone speak of himself as “the weakest and vilest of all thy called ones,” we might be tempted to dismiss Toplady’s self-deprecation as false humility, an elaborate charade.