The Life Story of the Author of My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers

Trace the life of Oswald Chambers from his boyhood in Scotland through an astounding journey of faith and trust in God's provision. From the United Kingdom to a YMCA training camp in Egypt during World War I, Chambers was a man utterly devoted to God and to sharing the timeless wisdom of the Bible with others.

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One of my top five biographies. ( )

This volume has probably sat on my bookshelf since it was first published (almost 30 years ago now), long before “My Utmost for His Highest” was more to me that just the title of a classic devotional. I can no longer remember how I originally acquired it, though I have a hunch it may have been a gift.
Almost 10 years ago now, in what to this point is still one of the greatest personal trials I have ever faced, I picked up an updated version of “My Utmost for His Highest” almost on a whim and found in it insights of such uncommon power that it has become a part of my devotional exercises ever since. And, a decade on, its power has yet to fade.
Of course, this is not a review of Chambers’ classic devotional but of McCasland’s biography of its writer which I decided to (finally) read out of a mixture of what can only be described as interest, shame (at having left languishing unread for so long), and resolve (if I found “My Utmost” to be so impactful, it was only sensible to learn a bit more about its author).
For the purposes of full disclosure, over the years, I have picked up the general outline of Chambers’ life…his time studying art at the University of Edinburgh, the transition to studying for ministry at the Bible Training College, his work with the YMCA attachment to the British Army in Egypt…and, from that perspective, I learned little that surprised me, though McCasland did add a good bit of “color” to the outline I already possessed.
McCasland does the work of charting Chambers’ life admirably well. He quotes liberally from his letters, journals, sermons, and articles and includes comments and insights from those who knew him. It is quite clear that he sees Oswald Chambers as more than a just a “man of the times,” defined by his era (which seems to be the trend of contemporary biography). He paints Chambers as one who stands out from his context, going against the grain of an increasingly intellectualized and straitened British Christianity with his passionate view of complete surrender and sanctification. McCasland describes well an intensity and authenticity to Oswald Chambers that few I’ve met could match.
I think what McCasland’s work helped me do, more than anything, was to consider again the impact of some things that I already knew. As an example, McCasland rightly picks up on the significance of Chambers’ early aspirations to be a Christian artist (he’s very clear that Chambers considered this a divine calling); it is clear to me now that much of the imagistic power preserved in his writings reflects those same gifts and interests in a different register. Also, his work as a Bible college professor (“tutor” is, I believe, the more correct British academic designation) probably goes a long way toward explaining why his words resonate so with me.
Having said that, there were (obviously) SOME surprises along the way. For example, Chambers was remarkably well read, not just in literature, but in contemporary theology and psychology (!). In a 1907 article for “God’s Revivalist,” Chambers’ excoriated the lack of proper missionary preparation in incredibly blunt terms: “To ignore the vast and competent literature relative to every country under Heaven today and to go to work for God, living more or less a hand-to-mouth spiritual life is to be utterly unfitted and unable to rightly divide the word of truth. Missionary ignorance…has at its heart laziness or a mistaken notion that the Holy Ghost puts a premium on ignorance.”
Chambers’ view of holiness issued in the promotion of a robust Christianity that was unafraid of making real demands of its adherents. The biblical doctrine of holiness he described as “uncompromising and manly.” (Note: I picked up on this phrase because it echoes the “recovery of manhood” language that Jackson Lears’ traces in significant detail in his “Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920.”)
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, McCasland demonstrates the crucial role that Chambers’ wife, Gertrude (or “Biddy” as he called her) played in making him the household name he is today. He is unstinting in his praise of her remarkable talents (able to take dictation at the alarming rate of 250 words per minute!), her tireless efforts to collect, organize, and publish his work, and her role as every bit Oswald’s equal in passionate desire for the Kingdom of God. In case you didn’t know it, “My Utmost for His Highest” is, in every meaningful sense of the term, CO-authored by Oswald and Gertrude Chambers, though, in an act of striking humility, her name appears nowhere in that text.
For those of a more theological turn of mind (like me), McCasland’s work will probably seem a bit light. For all his quotations from Chambers’ writings, there is not much explanation of them. He chooses not to wrestle with Chambers’ understanding of holiness (a hotly contested issue in his day) nor his rejection of the Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit baptism. To be completely honest, it does “flatten” his portrait of Chambers and ends up not giving due credit to Chambers’ writings as works of serious theology, which they undoubtedly were. Chambers clearly had a definite and unique perspective on several fundamental Christian doctrines that deserve more consideration than McCasland chooses to give them.
One nice touch: McCasland includes Chambers’ poetry as a sort-of appendix to the book. Though most of it is of middling quality, it does provide a unique way to “get at” the essence of the man, Oswald Chambers, who was equal parts sensitive artist, impassioned believer, and resolute soldier. It is a fitting coda to a symphonic life. ( )