Being Elisabeth Elliot: The Authorized Biography: Elisabeth's Later Years. Ellen Vaughn. 2023. [September] 304 pages. [Source: Review copy] [biography]
First sentence: "I feel perfectly certain that I shall never marry again," Elisabeth Elliot declared early in 1956. It had been nine days since her muscular young husband and his four fellow missionaries had been speared to death by members of a remote tribal people in the Amazon jungle.
This is the second volume of Ellen Vaughn's biography of Elisabeth Elliot. It is an authorized biography. Both volumes are authorized. She was granted access to materials that other biographers haven't been able to access--exclusive access. While other biographers have had access to some of her letters and published excerpts from her journals, Ellen Vaughn was granted access to LOTS of her journals.
There is no "one" Elisabeth Elliot--her spiritual and theological growth was ever-changing and ever-evolving. And the Elisabeth Elliot of later years--particularly the last two or three decades of her life--radically differs from earlier decades. She was something of a radical in the 1960s and 1970s. Not anti-establishment necessarily, but anti-evangelical establishment. What some refer to today as "big Eva." It wasn't so much that she questioned God, just how the evangelical church liked to box him in and speak for him.
This volume focuses on Elliot's "later years" focusing primarily on the years 1956-1978 (or 1979?). Essentially the biography begins to wind things up when she marries her third husband. A little is said of this time. It was very productive in creating the Elisabeth Elliot legacy--many of her most iconic works were published at this time. (Though not the most iconic, perhaps). But her third marriage...was....well, it came at great sacrifice. For example, if someone tells you I want to FENCE YOU IN ON ALL SIDES AND PROTECT YOU, you should probably give serious thought to what exactly they mean. Because it might not be as swoon-worthy and romantic as you might think.
The writing style worked so well. This was a QUICK read. The chapters were manageable (unlike that other Elliot biography I reviewed this year.) Each chapter seemed to have a purpose, a point.
Some of the content did surprise me. I didn't necessarily want to read the lusty, sensual side of Elisabeth Elliot. But it is a way of making sense of her later years and the decisions she made.
