Embracing Obscurity
Becoming Nothing in Light of God’s Everything
Author: Anonymous
Book Review & Critique
Barbara Buzzard
I shall begin with this quotation from another reviewer to give you the flavor of this most
remarkable book: “It is a paradoxical sign of the times that a book advocating the virtues of
anonymity yet requires named endorsements in order to be properly marketable. Thus, it is with
some sense of irony, if not incoherence, that I commend this work. We live in an age where self-
promotion is the norm and where even many sincere Christians have bought into this culture with
enthusiasm. Yet the message of this important book is that such self-promotion is not simply a
neutral cultural tool but is in fact antithetical to biblical Christianity. This is a timely call in
modesty, privacy, and humility. It is painful but necessary reading that is likely to be hated,
disparaged, or simply ignored by the very people who most need to heed its message.” 1
Another reviewer had this to say: “It hits hard. There were sentences in this book that stopped
me cold. Conclusions from its provocative critique will vary, but the book is prophetic and
needed.”2
Intoxicated with Ourselves
And finally this which I think encapsulates the author’s whole point: “Many of us are drunk
right now, intoxicated with a desire to be respected, honored, and widely known. And yet this
intoxication derails our ability to give God the respect, honor, and renown that He so rightly
deserves.”3
The Lie That Sells Best
And from the author: “We live in a culture that bases significance on how celebrated, or
common, we are. And now the church seems to have followed suit. This is serious stuff. It’s serious
because of its source. It’s just the sort of lie that Satan – the father of lies – manufactures and sells
best. It’s not too shocking. It can be justified and religious-sized and explained away easily enough.
But it kills with the same force as the ‘big sins’ from which we distance ourselves.” 4
The Message translates John 17:15-16 in this telling way: “I’m not asking that you take (my
people) out of the world, but that you guard them from the Evil One. They are no more defined by
the world than I am defined by the world.” But the author’s point is that we have allowed ourselves
to be defined by the world, on its terms, and following its example, to our peril.
Our anonymous author gives a most humorous account of “giving up” Facebook and describes
it as being similar to the Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy who discovered that it was all smoke and mirrors,
but dangerously so, as it can feed our ego and give us a blinding idea of self-importance. He even
refers to his time spent there as “web sin,” allowing triple digit “friends” to become a status symbol.
“Once again I saw that the depth of my pride knows no bounds. And in the months since that
experience, I’ve been chewing on this question: What else do we allow to define us?”5 There are
many sobering Scriptures which validate his point: “Everyone with a proud heart is detestable to the
LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished” (Prov. 16:5). And “Pride comes before destruction,
1
Carl R. Trueman, Westminster Theological Seminary
2
Owen Strachan, Assistant Prof. of Christian Theology and Church History
3
Bruce Riley Ashford, Dean of the College Research Fellow, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
4
Embracing Obscurity, Author: Anonymous, p. 2
5
Ibid., p. 19
1
and an arrogant spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). “His ego is inflated; he is without integrity. But
the righteous one will live by his faith…An arrogant man is never at rest” (Hab. 2:4-5). This is not
in the book but came to mind as pertinent to the subject; the historian, Zweig said of Calvin that he
was “intoxicated” with himself. Dangerous.
Significance
Each chapter is followed by discussion questions and would therefore be great for a class or a
book club. An example: “We spend most of our lives trying to prove how valuable we are – to our
friends, our coworkers and families, and even to our God. How might God’s offer of ‘significance
without strings’ revolutionize your life?” The author maintains that “The world is in a frenzy trying
to find lasting, eternal significance. But their efforts are in vain. Only God has ultimate, eternal
significance, and the only way we mortals get it is by joining our lives to His. Instead of spending
our days struggling for significance, living under the shame of failure, and watching what
temporary significance we do achieve fade away, Christ offers His significant life to us all. We
cannot earn it; we simply receive it by faith. He is our significance.”6
The New Living Translation offers a stark rendering of 1 John 2:16: “The world offers only a
craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and
possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.” To verify this as the current
state of affairs, our author states that: “Thirty-five percent of ‘born-again Christians’ think having a
sexual relationship with someone of the opposite sex to whom they are not married is ‘morally
acceptable.’”7
“A lot of us are caught up in this religious version of the American dream, even in the church”
(emphasis mine). “The committed Christian’s unhealthy ambitions may take different forms than
you’d expect from general society, but unless our pride is intentionally and ruthlessly cut out of our
lives, it can be just as dangerous — maybe even more so. That’s why God gave us an entirely
different business model to emulate. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus boldly charged us to
replace the world’s view of success with His when He said…” 8 Of course what he said or charged
us with is recorded in Matthew 5:3-12, but these are qualities not highly respected by our world’s
system, nor are they widely sought after.
Another Powerful Lie
The writer notes that suffering changes us; how right he is. He then offers this insight: “There’s
a startling trend in Christian thinking about suffering. Though subtle, this misconception is no less
dangerous than many other of Satan’s lies. I call it the ‘Joseph Principle,’ and it goes like this: If I
am suffering in obscurity today, God must be preparing me for something greater, better, or more
prominent later in life.”9 He finds this thinking faulty and notes that this is not an easy pill to
swallow. He maintains that we like to view setbacks as having inevitable success at the end. He
quotes a blogger who feels that his time in the waiting room of life is just a season of growth and
development, getting him ready for his moment on stage. The idea of always remaining in obscurity
or indeed suffering for God’s glory is not comforting. He then stresses that the “all things working
together for good” Scriptural principle, while ultimately true, is misunderstood because we have
catered to the world’s definition of good and thereby swallowed a “gross misinterpretation” — i.e.
the end of the story may look quite different than what we had hoped.
Author Anonymous offers a final caveat in the nature of full disclosure: “If we obey God it is
going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. If we are in
6
Ibid., p. 59
7
Ibid., p. 77
8
Ibid., p. 83
9
Ibid., p. 116
2
love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything, it is a delight, but it costs those who do not
love Him a good deal. If we obey God it will mean that other people’s plans are upset, and they will
gibe us with it – ‘You call this Christianity?’ We can prevent the suffering; but if we are going to
obey God, we must not prevent it, we must let the cost be paid.” 10 This certainly adds a further
“ouch” to his message. He asks if we can deal with driving uglier cars, wearing older clothes, losing
a well-loved circle of acquaintances, to use Chambers’ phrase, “consequences of obedience.”
In Matthew 18:1-5 Jesus gives an active command. Notes our author: we are to humble
ourselves; this is not something done to us. Excellent point, and I would think that this would also
include the passage which states that every knee shall bow; opportunity is given to us to act as we
should; failing to strive for humility will mean failure. I very much like the author’s intent, not of
making peace – but of making war with his own sin. We must be ruthless in this.
Critique
Now my reservations and reasons for giving this book a mixed review. I would not wish to take
anything away from the author’s purpose in his book. I agree with so many readers that it is
absolutely necessary for self-examination, perhaps even a Godsend, certainly a wake-up call.
I feel that one of the greatest gifts we could ever receive is to see ourselves as God sees us and
this goes hand in hand with what the author is attempting to point out.
Having said that, I think that we must ask not only “Where do we go from here?” but “Where
did we go wrong?” Not only have we inherited (and added to) a culture of deceit, but even more
importantly, we have followed a broken model. As has been eloquently said: “It is not that
Christianity has failed; it is that it is never been tried.” I think that the whole system that is the
backbone of our religious orthodoxy is seriously flawed. It is a system which enforces obscurity
upon all those who do not give their assent to manmade religious doctrines. One has only to read the
history of orthodoxy to see that it is filled with thuggery of the worst kind. Much can be learned just
from the titles of books attempting to give the history, e.g. When Jesus Became God,11 The Jesus
Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would
Believe for the Next 1,500 Years.12 See also The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.13
The history of both our Protestant and Catholic churches is riddled with violence, brutality, and
tyrannical force. It is a system which has played fast and loose with truth. It is a system which uses
thought police to guard against inquiry; it bullies and persecutes and tyrannizes and silences. The
culture of deceit which the author recognizes so clearly in his dealings with the world is, I am sorry
to say, also true of the church and its powerful determinations and hallowed traditions. It has not
allowed certain very important fundamentals of truth to be known, but suppresses them by clever
tactics, illusions, masking, and avoidance. I wish there was a kinder way to say this. This insight
says it well (the author is speaking of the loss of Jewish core beliefs): “That was a disaster to the
Church itself. It meant that the Church as a whole failed to understand the Old Testament, and that
the Greek mind and the Roman mind in turn, instead of the Hebrew mind, came to dominate its
outlook; from that disaster the Church has never recovered, either in doctrine or in practice.” 14
I have another criticism of Embracing Obscurity. The word “obscure” according to Webster’s
means “dim or dark, hidden, or shrouded, unknown.” Should that really be our aim and ambition? I
thought we were meant to shine like stars, and not hide (our light) under a bushel. We surely do not
want to aim for the nirvana of Buddhism where one just becomes a part of a great mass. In this age
10
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, p. 11
11
Richard Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God.
12
Philip Jenkins, The Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians
Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years.
13
Mark Knoll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.
14
Canon H.L. Goudge, The Calling of the Jews, Judaism and Christianity
3
of information through media, how could a seeker find truth if truth were not advertised, and I don’t
think truth can be offered in an obscure way. It has to have a presence and be accessible. Could an
organization offering truth be obscure? True believers will not be obscure in any way once Jesus
returns. Indeed, they will be looked up to as great models and examples for those who repent at that
time. If that “shining, wining, and dining” in the future Kingdom is of the Lord’s doing — so be it. I
don’t think I would be saying “No, thank you!” Is it not ironic that the Church uses enforced
obscurity as punishment? Since it is no longer kosher to persecute by way of torture, drowning, and
the like, it simply ignores the dissident and pretends he has no case, hushing up his protests, and
squelching uncomfortable truths. So to actually strive for obscurity seems strange. Would that the
same examination/introspection be requested of the church – it would be a healthy thing. As Mark
Twain said: “The Church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to
reform itself a little, by way of example.”
Reason and Intellect
“The Supreme Being…became a roughly eight-pound mass of created cells…He became
human. The weakest form of human at that” says the author of this book. It sounds like he not only
did the creating but was the one created as well! He would have us believe that we have Deity in
diapers. I recall Galileo’s “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
This book’s author does understand that it is not wrong to be aware of the rewards which Jesus
will bring with him. In fact, he says: “In this journey of learning to embrace obscurity, I’ve become
somewhat of a reward-monger. And why not? If God didn’t mean for us to calculate future reward
into our present decisions, He wouldn’t have told us what we have to look forward to.” 15 I would
differ with the author in what precisely that is that we have to look forward to and point out to
readers that Jesus always spoke of the Kingdom as our inheritance and our hope. (Someone has said
that Jesus couldn’t open his mouth without speaking about the Kingdom. The Church has changed
that and offers something different.) Jesus did not correct the disciples when they asked what they
might receive for their efforts. The parable of the talents and many other of Jesus’ sayings
encourage the striving for excellence in doing good and thereby gaining a greater reward.
I think that whoever this writer is, he might have done his readers a greater service by urging
them to embrace truth. This seems to be a virtue we have all but done away with. It might even be
foreign sounding. It is certainly not high on the lists of those shopping for a church, nor for many
ensconced there. In No Place for Truth we find this: “It may be the case that Christian faith, which
has made many easy alliances with modern culture in the past few decades, is also living in a fool’s
paradise, comforting itself about all of the things that God is doing in society…while it is losing its
character, if not its soul.”16 Embracing Obscurity should cause one to stop and reflect on what we
should regard as the chief virtue. No doubt, most would answer “love,” but have we not been
warned that whoever does not love the truth is not worthy of the Kingdom? And when Jesus was
asked what the greatest commandment was, the first verb in his answer was to listen — i.e. to
Deuteronomy 6:4-5. I fear that we have not listened well and we have created our own system of
beliefs as well as dishing out some pretty rough “justice” to those who don’t go along with that
man-made “system.”
15
Embracing Obscurity, p. 172
16
David F. Wells, No Place for Truth, p. 68
