Books read in 2018: No. 10 -- The Cross and the Switchblade

by David Wilkerson

Started: Feb. 6
Finished: Feb. 8

Notes: When I was a kid in the 1970s, I had a comic book version of this book, the true-life story of a pastor who went to New York City in the 1950s to help street gangs. I had forgotten about the comic book until I ran across this old book in a used book store, and then I thought it might be interesting to read the book, which was also made into a movie.

Mini review: The writing here is pretty good for someone who is a non-professional writer, though it takes a couple of dozen pages to reach a solid flow. The story is interesting enough, but as can be expected is full of the coincidences the author promptly places as the workings of God. It does seem, at least from these writings, that the eventual creation of a teen center in NYC did do some help for young people facing homelessness and drug addiction. However, as the author was a Pentecostal preacher, eventually there comes up talking in tongues and the like, which personally draws my skepticism (and I come from a family with Pentecostals). Silly? Truth? I'll let others form their own opinions. For me, my guess would be there's a mixture of truth, that perhaps God did touch the lives of the people involved with this story, or perhaps not. Either way, at least some people seemingly had their hearts in the right place and others were helped.