Never Meet Your Heroes?
Elisabeth Elliot: A Life, Lucy S.R. Austen. Wheaton: Crossway, 2023. Hardcover, 612 pages.
Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015) first surged to global fame in 1956. On January 8 of that year, her husband Jim and four other American missionaries were killed by Waorani warriors along a remote river in Ecuador. After careful preparations, they had landed on a sandbar to establish contact with the reclusive Waorani – a people about whom little was known except their reputation for fierce violence. The story of their martyrdom became headline news all over the world. Elisabeth’s response to her husband’s death was part of the story. She was grieving – naturally — but she wasn’t bitter or angry at the Waorani. In fact, the next year she and their daughter Valerie were living among the Waorani, studying their language and hoping to share the gospel with them. That brought even more attention to this remarkable woman.
In the following years, after her repatriation to the United States, Elliot became widely known as a writer and speaker. She wrote fiction and non-fiction, both books and articles. Her book Passion and Purity is widely credited as one of the leading influences on evangelical “purity culture.” Later in life, she hosted an extensively syndicated daily radio program, Gateway to Joy.
This isn’t the first biography of Elliot. Ellen Vaughn wrote a biography published in two volumes in 2020 and 2023. There are some differences between these biographies that make it worthwhile to read both if you’re interested in getting to know Elliot as well as possible. One is that Vaughn’s biography was authorized by Elliot’s family. As such it tends to be a somewhat more sympathetic portrayal, sometimes glossing over its subject’s faults. Austen’s biography was written in consultation with Elliot’s family, but she obviously had a freer hand in what she included. Austen’s biography is still sympathetic, but more scholarly and critical; it’s a bit more at arm’s length, you could say. It’s the kind of biography which really does justice to the complexity of its subject.
This biography isn’t just about the life story of a person – it’s about the nature of that person. What was Elisabeth Elliot really like? There was her public persona, but what about in private? Austen does a fine job of unravelling that, using letters, journals, and interviews with people who knew her. She highlights her good Christian qualities, as well as some of her faults, foibles, and inconsistencies. This biography cannot be described as hagiographical – it’s the kind of honest biography Elisabeth Elliot herself tried to write about R. Kenneth Strachan in 1968.
There were a few points that stood out. One was that Elliot’s early years often reflected the weaknesses of her evangelical origins. When she went to Ecuador with her husband, they went as Plymouth Brethren Christians. However, they weren’t responsible to any Plymouth Brethren church (that idea being foreign to them), nor was there any accountability to any organization. Jim and Elisabeth both believed that God had directly called them to Ecuador and they went, without being formally sent by a church. This isn’t the New Testament picture of Christian mission.
Some of Elliot’s beliefs were in flux, reflecting her origins in evangelical primitivist Christianity where confessions don’t exist. At one point, she wrote to her mother unsure of what happens to the soul of a believer after death (p.356). According to her brother Dave, she once said, “I’m not even sure if there are any absolutes in life…Unless it be love, maybe love is an absolute. But everything else is not an absolute” (p.392). That was in 1964. Later her stance on absolutes would become firmer. Something similar can be said for her views on homosexuality/same-sex attraction.
Perhaps most surprising for me was her gravitation towards the Roman Catholic Church. After her brother Tom Howard became Episcopalian (Anglican), she followed suit in 1970. While some Anglicans adhere closely to the Calvinistic-leaning 39 Articles, it doesn’t appear that Elliot ever did. Throughout the years, Elliot often read and quoted favourably from Roman Catholic authors. Reacting against their individualistic upbringing, both Tom and Elisabeth found a high liturgy and authoritative church structure appealing. In 1985, Tom became a Roman Catholic. Some years later, Elliot was asked why she didn’t follow. She replied that it was cowardice, saying “my listeners and readers simply would not understand” (p.495). She was afraid to “swim the Tiber” because she didn’t want to lose her audience.
Elisabeth Elliot was married two more times after being the widow of Jim Elliot. Some of the details of her third marriage (to Lars Gren) have garnered this book media attention. To say it was a difficult marriage would be an understatement. The word “abusive” might be more accurate. She was a strong proponent of complementarianism, but her third marriage appears to be a cautionary tale of how this position can be perverted to the detriment of women.
They say you should never meet your heroes because you’ll soon discover they’re human too. Elisabeth Elliot hasn’t been a hero of mine, but I can imagine she is for some of you reading. In Austen’s biography, you’re going to meet Elliot and some things about her are going to be uncomfortable or disconcerting to hear (as a Christian did she really read Playboy!?). Regardless, her resilience, faith, and communication skills inspired many Christians during her life and still today. Despite whatever personal or doctrinal issues she had, more than a few believers became missionaries because of her impact. For that fact alone, you might want to meet her and get to know her character and life story.