Andrew Murray. Letters to his children. Exposé of a vulnerable father

Isabel Murray

Andrew Murray (Jr) is a remarkably ambivalent figure in the history of South Africa. There is a paradox present in how his legacy was – and still is – received, especially in the Dutch Reformed Church. From a historical viewpoint, he played an immense role in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to change South African society’s
view of education and mission. Still, what has been written on this figure does not equate the person he was and the width of his influence.
This collection of Andrew’s personal letters – many written after the death of his beloved Emma in 1905, comes as a fresh breeze to reframe the lens in retrieving the legacy of Andrew Murray (Jr). He is not introduced through a polemical lens but as an important spiritual figure in South Africa, who in his personal and intimate life with his children, reflects an embodied spirituality – a spirituality that can be traced through centuries of the church, where the ‘eating’ of the Bible and a new life in Christ was seen as the goal of the Christian life. What makes it more intimate is that the author herself is a part of the ‘children’s children’ of Andrew Murray (Sr), who came to the Cape Colony in 1822.
This book is therefore a mosaic of letters that creates an atmosphere tangible of a family who talked and lived God spontaneously.