Surprised by Oxford

Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir

By Carolyn Weber

Thomas Nelson, 2011

An unsolicited package from Thomas Nelson lay on my desk. Since I had decided to take a break from reading and reviewing new books, and this was the second to arrive within a week, I considered sending it back unopened. I’m glad that I didn’t.

Carolyn Weber tells how she arrived at Oxford on a scholarship that she worked excessively hard for. She was there to pursue a graduate degree and education. She left with those and infinitely more.

Weber’s honesty is refreshing. She was certainly not seeking Jesus, or even God. As a young, independent, intelligent academic, she didn’t want “Christian” on her resume, and she fought against the gospel, slinging her arguments “like arrows of outrageous fortune.” But her arguments turned to thoughtful questions, and her defenses began to fall as she realized that there was something great missing from her life. “Caro,” a friend of hers said, “I can see the conversion happening on your face….I can hear it in your multilevel homesickness.”

Weber’s conversion was no half-hearted decision. For months she privately read the Bible, and for months she asked tough questions. These questions take her, and the reader, into deep theological territory. Yet it’s always with a fresh and personal perspective; accessible and enjoyable. And the gospel pours from the pages of this book. Weber makes us hungry to dig into the New Testament with the zeal of a new believer.

Weber’s writing is free from pious jargon; she undercuts her own praise of clichés by rarely using them. The author avoids both the superficiality and the pseudo-intellectualism that Christian writers are often guilty of. Hers is exactly the kind of writing that I want to read. And her story is exactly the kind I needed to hear. Alister McGrath describes it perfectly: “A hugely readable journey of cultural and spiritual discovery, sparkling with wit and wisdom.” Surprised by Oxford is the warmest and most enjoyable memoir I’ve read this year.

http://www.pressingsave.com/surprised-by-oxford