Soulprint

Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church, is a gracious and well-spoken counselor. His book Soulprint is a collection of past sermons discussing how one finds identity in God, using the biblical pattern of David. Batterson calls for self-awareness, integrity, and the peculiar self-debasement that marked David; a sort of undignity that I've never heard anyone explain convincingly. Batterson calls us to be God's unique poiema, the craftsmanship of a personal Lord.

The structure of Batterson's thesis is taken from significant markers in David's life: his slaying of Goliath, his flight from Saul, his adultery with Bathsheba, etc. I am uneasy when I see this sort of case drawn out of writings that were composed by and for people who hadn't the slightest notion of 21st century identity problems, if they were even concerned about individual identity as all. In fact, as far as I understand the culture of the high Hebrew kingdom, it was a society in which the people found their meaning more in community than in individual selfness. King David was, of course, a spectacular personality, but in every way the exception to the rule of this people’s worldview. I would never dare to suggest in the modern and unlearned manner that timeless truths can’t be drawn from story; but I do worry when I sense that the story is misunderstood. Take for example, Batterson’s analysis of David plundering Goliath’s armor. Batterson, in his convincing and encouraging manner, reads a message of lifesymbols and altars into the episode; and in doing so he brushes aside (as he does with David’s rejection of Saul’s armor) an episode rich in its original meaning, and much more like the stories of Achilles and Patroclus than the story of Denis Waitley. The problem is not that Batterson says anything wrong; it is that he misrepresents his sources.

With that said against him, Batterson writes with a comprehensive and compassionate insight into the condition of the 20^th century man, and his antidote to the identity dilemma is perfectly placed: To find out who you are, find God.