Pulling the Eye Tooth from a Live Tiger

Audubon Press is an associate ministry of the Audubon Drive Bible Church in Laurel, South Mississippi. Its pastor and one of the directors of this press is Jerry Marcellino, one of the driving forces behind a network of Calvinistic churches in the USA, the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals (FIRE).

A number of the recent books which the Audubon Press has produced are very classy and beautifully designed. They are not works of academic theology but are all centred on mission.

The first is the life of Adoniram Judson in two volumes by Francis Wayland. These 1000 pages have not been reprinted since the first edition in Boston and in London in 1853. That set sold 26,000 copies in its first year of publication. It became a major stimulus to the development of American evangelical missions. As becomes a modern production, its title has been changed to the racier Pulling the Eye Tooth from a Live Tiger. This is a quotation from Adoniram Judson as a suitable analogy of the difficulty he had known of getting a Burmese to leave his religion and put his trust in Christ. This story of a very godly and brave man, with his letters and diaries, is a rich addition to anyone’s library.

The next book they have brought out is a reprint of James A. De Jong’s Free University of Amsterdam dissertation on millennial expectations in the rise of Anglo-American Missions 1640-1810, As the Waters Cover the Sea. De Jong comes from a much respected Christian Reformed Church dynasty and he eventually became President of Calvin Seminary. The book which once had a drab cover is now beautifully illustrated. It is a standard treatment on this subject and has fascinating insights into the period.

The third book is The Theology of Missions in the Puritan Tradition, a study of representative Puritans, Sibbes, Baxter, Eliot, Mather and Edwards. It is the work of Sidney Rooy who served for thirty-six years as a missionary professor in Latin America. Once again the original 1965 Eerdmans work has been re-issued with a splendid new cover. It is a dissertation with all the thoroughness one might expect but with a missionary’s heart producing it.

May the Audubon Press be greatly blessed.