Book Review: The Hard Corps

The Hard Corps: Combat Training for the Man of God. By Dai Hankey. Epsom, Surrey: The Good Book Company. pp. 128. 2012. ($12.99 Print)

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3 Stars: A Solid "Like"

Dai Hankey is a young evangelical pastor in the United Kingdom and in many ways reminds me of a Welsh Mark Driscoll. If you’re familiar with Driscoll, you may already have enough information to decide whether The Hard Corps is going on your reading list or not, but he’s been a bit of a hit or miss with me, so it’s worth considering the merits of this book in and of itself.

Hankey’s book is based on a sermon series he preached in 2010 about David’s Might Men, a.k.a. “The Hard Corps.” Each chapter takes a look at men who served their king well and performed some heroic actions that God saw fit to include in His holy Word. These chapters more or less “principlize” the passages, drawing out general principles dealing with manhood and heroics from the stories and applying them to everyday life situations men face. At the end of each chapter are some additional questions and scripture passages that open up the book to become much more of a men’s study than a mere reading of the book would produce. He also includes some helpful resources at the end of the book, which he calls an “Armoury,” to arm his readers for future engagements with the Word and with the world.

In all, I enjoyed the book. Hankey is quite conversational, and some of his British colloquialisms are foreign enough to add a little fun to the reading, such as calling his kids “bonkers,” describing a passage as “big and chunky,” or saying men are “generally pretty rubbish at relational stuff. Occasionally he dips into the same kind of juvenile humor and semi-vulgar language that has come to identify his American counterpart, Mark Driscoll, which is really where I dock him points for his book. It’s difficult for me as a reader to have someone encourage me to become more mature when a few sentences earlier the author made an off-color remark about male reproductive organs.

In all though, Hankey’s dalliances into that kind of talk is relatively sparse, and the book carries a good message to men about living for King Jesus like “The Hard Corps” served King David. If you’re the kind of person who likes to listen to audio sermons, you may want to just check out the sermon series (as an American, I really enjoy the accent). If you’re a fan of Driscoll though, you might want to pick up a copy and keep your eyes on the horizon for more from Dai Hankey. I expect good things out of him.

I received this book from Cross Focused Reviews in exchange for my written review.