Baghdad Christmas

By Bob Lonsberry

Baghdad Christmas is a war story, and it ought to be. Christmas, after all, was fundamentally an act of war. It was D-day in the war to save men's souls. Christ came into the world to help men throw... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555179711
• ISBN13: 9781555179717
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Cedar Fort
• Length: 46 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.1" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Touching read that would appeal to Christians

This is a well written fictional story which incorporates religious beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The story had most of the women in our book club in tears (regardless of religious affiliation). It is a quick read (took about one hour reading aloud). I don't listen to the Bob Lonsberry show enough to have even realized that he was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS... I guess those who listen to him often don't have any trouble realizing it. He is very respectful of his multi-denominational audience. The story is about U.S. soldiers in Iraq who are ambushed in their humvee. Two low ranking soldiers face what could be their final moments/hours together after their superior officers are killed. One soldier is a deeply religious man while the other is not very religious. In a crisis, the religious soldier is able to help his fellow soldier face the possibility of death by sharing his faith as well as helping him realize his worth to God. It's a simple story and an easy read. It inspires faith in Christ and national pride. Although I can appreciate the earlier review, I think it is a little misleading. This is not a philosophical book, it's a short fictional story that does a good job of giving the reader some insights into the "Mormon" belief system.

The dual-front war

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:11-12) I begin with two preliminaries-- First, I'm not a fan of LDS fiction: think of U2's song "Even Better Than the Real Thing." Why do I need to read about fictitious Mormons evangelizing fictitious non-members, when I am surrounded by very real and very splendid strangers and fellowcitizens? What could be better than the real thing? Second, we should review what C. S. Lewis said about cathedrals and corkscrews: "The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know what it is--what it was intended to do and how it was meant to be used. After that has been discovered the temperance reformer may decide that the corkscrew was made for a bad purpose, and the communist may think the same about the cathedral. But such questions come later. The first thing is to understand the object before you: as long as you think the corkscrew was meant for opening tins or the cathedral for entertaining tourists you can say nothing to purpose about them." (A Preface To "Paradise Lost," 1) "Baghdad Christmas" is didactic religious fiction in the short story format. It can be broken down in the literary aspects of plot, theme, setting, characterization, style. Plot: The story revolves around two stranded Humvee monkeys during Christmas. They are caught in a brush fire, and discuss the meaning of Christmas as it relates to the war in Iraq. Essentially it is a "no atheists in foxhole" dialogue, with an emphasis on distinctive LDS doctrines. Theme: This book discusses the very real "War within a War" phenomenon. Lonsberry follows C. S. Lewis, who himself was a vet of WWI and wrote the essay "Learning in wartime." "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," for example, begins in London during the London Blitz, then moves to the blitz in Narnia. Lewis clinched this idea of dual warfare in the fifteenth Screwtape Letter: "I had noticed, of course, that the humans were having a lull in their European war--what they naively call "The War!"" As Ayn Rand explained, "The purpose of art is to concretize the artist's fundamental view of existence." Lonsberry affirms his own outlook that we are in a "two front war": the physical-temporal war that involves Iraq, North Korea, and terrorism, and the second spiritual-eternal front that involves sin, secret combinations, and our salvation. He also reaffirms a truth that President Joseph Fielding Smith taught: "Satan has control now. No matter where you look, he is in control, even in our own land. He is guiding the governments as far as the Lord will permit him. That is why there is so much strife, turmoil, and confusion all over the earth." "One master mind is governing the nat