I’m reviewing Presumed Guilty by James Scott Bell. This is my first review for Active Christian Media, formerly Mind & Media, and so far I’m really enjoying it. I’m a fast reader – it takes me about 6 hours to get through a Tom Clancy book as long as I’m not interrupted. I absolutely blew through Presumed Guilty because the suspense was killing me, and then flipped right back to page one to start over and really savor it because it is extremely well written. More on that in the official review, which I will complete in a few days. For now, just a brief comment on a startling statement made by one of the characters in the book.

“Christians are inverse paranoids.”
“Inverse what?”
“We believe that there is a massive force always working to bring about our good in the world. That’s God working out his plan, his will for his children.”

Romans 8:28 has been popping up in my life for years, even when I didn’t believe it. Our church had recently covered Romans 8 when Katrina struck, and I know a lot of people that were greatly comforted by that verse when they lost most or all of their material possessions. And here it is again, restated in a really striking way.

If I were a real paranoid, I’d wonder if that was a message to prepare me for the next hurricane season or some other calamity. I’m counting the days until June 1, and busily preparing, for whatever good it does me. But whatever significance I might invest in this reminder, I prefer to think that it is a reminder that this is the lifestyle of a Christian, and definitely my preferred lifestyle. A person who is joyful in her current circumstances and sanguine about circumstances outside of her control – and realistically that’s pretty much ALL of them. The inverse paranoid lifestyle. I like it.