Way Below the Angels
The Pretty Clearly Troubled But Not Even Close to Tragic Confessions of a Real Live Mormon Missionary
- World Religions
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Published: 2014
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Publisher's Description
When Craig Harline set off on his two-year Mormon mission to Belgium in the 1970s, he had big dreams of doing miracles, converting the masses, and coming home a hero. What he found instead was a lot of rain and cold, one-sentence conversations with irritated people, and silly squabbles with fellow missionaries. From being kicked -- literally -- out of someone's home to getting into arguments about what God really wanted from Donny Osmond, Harline faced a range of experiences that nothing, including his own missionary training, had prepared him for. He also found a wealth of friendships with fellow Mormons as well as unconverted locals and, along the way, gained insights that would shape the rest of his life. Part religious history, part coming-of-age story, part witty spiritual memoir, this book takes readers beyond the stereotypical white shirts and name tags to reveal just how unpredictable, funny, and poignant the missionary life can be.
Endorsements (6)
“How could a memoir that primarily deals with religion and rejection be so flippin' hilarious? Craig Harline's experiences as a Mormon missionary in Belgium in the mid-1970s are ingeniously funny, but they also point to important issues — how religious people deal with apparent failure and navigate grown-up faith after childish certainties have proven inadequate.”
“An incandescent and searingly honest memoir. . . . Earthy and spiritual all at once, Harline's eloquent account of his travails brims over with good humor and transcends confessional boundaries. Taking the reader from door to door, step by redeeming step, this pilgrim's journal ultimately reveals as much about the human condition as it does about the inner workings of Mormon foreign missions.”
“Witty, poignant, and tender. The characters are unforgettable, and Harline's rendering of his interactions with them is luminous. . . . Utterly riveting and delightful.”
“Way Below the Angels is perhaps the most authentic and honest account ever written by a practicing Mormon of the unvarnished Mormon experience. In one moment hilariously funny and in the next heartbreakingly revealing, Craig Harline's story of his journey of self-discovery is filled with insight, humor, wit, and erudition. . . . All readers will learn something, most importantly, about themselves.”
“A beautiful, hilarious, and haunting book. . . . The best, most thoughtful, funniest and truest recreation of missionary life — especially the internal life of a missionary — that I've ever read. . . . This is a great book.”
“You can read an (excellent) book like Unbroken and think: that was amazing, and it has nothing to do with my life. But you read Way Below the Angels and think: this is me — a kicked-over anthill on the inside, even when things are really not all that bad on the outside. . . . Harline provides an unusual kind of balm in the form of an epically raw and genuine account of his mission.”
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