Book Review: THE EDGE OF ETERNITY by Randy Alcorn

The Edge of Eternity by Randy Alcorn
published by Waterbrook Press

Randy Alcorn is one of the most versatile writers in the Christian world today. He has produced six fictional works and numerous nonfiction on a range of subject from inner-city race relations to a theological review of heaven. One notable aspect of Alcorn’s work is that you can often see the root of the formula in the works of masters. So, his Lord Foulgrin’s Letters is very much like C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape letters. The Edge of Eternity will remind you of Pilgrim’s Progress. This is in no way intended to denigrate what Alcorn has accomplished, for in this work, he has created a first rate allegory.

The book opens very quickly into a surreal place that will leave you confused and sometimes frustrated through the first 40 pages. I put the book down, and almost forgot about it for several weeks. I am very thankful that I picked it up again and stayed with it during this very strange opening.

Like Pilgrim’s progress, the protagonist is on a journey in a strange land. Unlike the classic, however, the character’s names and the places they visit or not quite so obvious in what they are analogous to. But when clarity comes, it is like a spiritual awakening, and often includes having to deal with feelings that we’d rather leave in a closet somewhere. Skewered is a word that comes to mind.

This book easily makes my top 10 list, and I have consumed 1000’s of books. I don’t think you can read it to the end without having it change your life. . . at least for a season.