After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken [Paperback]

Kent Annan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 2011

In the wake of a historic earthquake in the fragile country of Haiti, Kent Annan considers suffering--from the epic to the everyday--as a problem for faith.

Less than two weeks after the release of Kent's book about his work with Haiti Partners, he heard the news.

Friends trapped under the rubble of buildings. Friends sprinting across the city looking for family. Churches--including one Kent often attended--turned to rubble. Suddenly Kent and his friends were part of an uncomfortable fellowship: people whose faith is shaken by crisis.

Taking courage from the psalmists of old and the company of his grieving neighbors, Kent has found that there is solidarity in suffering. Others have followed life to the edge of meaning and have heard God even there, calling for honest faith.



Kent wrote to help you find out.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Kent Annan walks his readers through the rubble of the January 2010 earthquake that hit Haiti unforgettably. I have known Kent for eight years since he and his wife first moved here to Haiti and lived with a family in the countryside to learn and experience Haitian life. After Shock tells the story of all of us who have lived through this terrible event." (Jean Claude Cerin, Haiti country representative for Tearfund)

"Kent Annan's writing is both reflective and purposeful. Searching for faith among the rubble of shattered homes and lives in Haiti, he lifts up lamentations of sorrow and stories of joy. This is a credible book for anyone who has ever wondered where God is in a world full of suffering." (Jim Wallis, president, Sojourners, and author of The Great Awakening)

"This is no ivory-tower exploration of faith and doubt. In After Shock, Kent Annan offers a muscular, gritty and devastatingly hopeful model of a faith lived between the questions. Like Haiti after the earthquake, it recoils from quick-fix inspiration or a sappy resolution. Instead it offers something much more powerful: truth." (Jason Boyett, author of O Me of Little Faith and Pocket Guide to the Afterlife)

"Page after page in After Shock, I've been blown away by Kent Annan's raw honesty, risky vulnerability and human sensitivity. On top of that there's his robust and clear writing style. And there's the simple fact of where he's been, what he's seen and felt, what he's asked and refused to accept, and how he's struggled to make sense of it all. It yields a rich book that has the chance, with your cooperation, to make you a better Christian and a better human being." (Brian McLaren, author/activist)

"Kent Annan asks the hard questions in After Shock. Where was God during and after the Haiti disaster? How could a loving God allow his children to suffer? The questions as well as the answers might surprise you. This is a deeply personal account of a man's walk of faith--a man heavily invested in this island nation and its people." (Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author)

"Like Kent Annan, I've walked through the devastation of Port-au-Prince and its surrounding mountains in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake. Like Kent I've seen and smelled the tragedy, and shaking questions have met my soul. In After Shock he describes palpably how Christ’s broken, resurrected body meets our brokenness in a tangible, fragile, personal way--a way so essential to a lasting faith. After Shock will summon you to a journey of real, vibrant, honest faith in the Holy God who promises to be with us always, even in the bruised and broken circumstances of life." (Benjamin Homan, president of John Stott Ministries and former president of Food for the Hungry)

"Annan has put into words the questions many of us wrestle with in silence, and done so with such humanity and humility, it's impossible to walk away unchanged. This is a raw, beautiful and courageous book, brimming with truth on every page." (Rachel Held Evans, author of Evolving in Monkey Town)

"It is hard to explain how I can say that this is a truly beautiful book, when it comes out of a background of such horror. But that was my dominant emotion as I finished it. Beautiful, perhaps, because up-close honesty is beautiful where the clichés of certainty-at-a-distance are repellant. Beautiful because it touches depths of reality where the beauty of God glimmers through the inexplicable darkness of suffering and the desperation of faith, love and hope. Of course, it is also a deeply disturbing book. But if its brutal honesty upsets you, or if the questions it throws before God with baffled anger and gritty trust seem too irreverent, perhaps you have not really spent enough time in the company of Jeremiah, Job, the psalmists--and Jesus. This is a book to read alongside the author at the foot of the cross, and at the empty tomb, where knowing, loving and trusting God make sense, even when understanding his world does not." (Christopher J. H. Wright, international director of The Langham Partnership International, and author of The God I Don't Understand)

"After Shock is one man's scrupulously honest search for God. Although Kent Annan hopes for unshakable faith, he celebrates doubt as part of the process, a necessary part of being alive. There are no easy answers. There may be no answers at all. After Shock is the perfect example of what Rainer Maria Rilke called 'living the questions.' This is a book I will read over and over, for inspiration and for comfort. I loved it." (Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life)

"Kent Annan struggles with his faith existentially. This is no simple attempt to excuse God for non-interference in the suffering that pervades Port-au-Prince following a devastating earthquake. Instead, it is the poetic confession of a Christian who faces his doubts and questions about God, and yet goes beyond them to find a newer, stronger faith." (Tony Campolo, Professor Emeritus, Eastern University)

About the Author

In the wake of a historic earthquake in the fragile country of Haiti, Kent Annan considers suffering as a problem for faith. Along the way he discovers that he is not alone, that from the psalmists of old to our neighbors today, people have followed life to the edge of meaning and have heard--God even there, calling for honest faith. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 137 pages
• Publisher: IVP Books (January 11, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830836179
• ISBN-13: 978-0830836178
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #739,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kent Annan is author of After Shock (2011) and Following Jesus through the Eye of the Needle (2009). (Visit www.KentAnnan.com for blog, interviews, etc.)

Kent is also co-director of Haiti Partners, a nonprofit focused on education in Haiti. He's worked in Haiti since 2003--first living there and now traveling there regularly from Florida, where he lives with his wife and two children.

He has spent many years going back and forth between North America and working with people in different, difficult situations around the world. After graduating from university, Kent worked for two years in Western Europe helping refugees from the former Yugoslavia, Iran, Sierra Leone, and other countries. He then returned to study theology at Princeton Seminary, during which he spent three months studying in India. On graduation, he moved to Albania and then Kosovo to work for six months with refugees there. Later he moved back to Princeton to work (and for love!)--and a few years later he and his new wife moved to Haiti for two and a half years.

His book, Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle, tells the story of his move to Haiti and weaves together the nitty gritty joys and stumbles of living and ministering in the developing world--with reflections about faith, doubt, love and God along the way.

His writing has been published in literary journals including Utne Reader, Subtropics, Geez, Adbusters, The Sun, Natural Bridge, Pilgrimage Puerto Del Sol, Orion. One of his essays was cited as a "Notable Essay" in the Best American Essays series.

Kent has a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An honest look at faith, doubt, love, and hope January 27, 2011

By Mary from Michigan

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the second book of Kent Annan's that I've read, and like the 1st, (Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle) it was hard to put down, not only because of its raw honesty, but because Annan has a powerful way of drawing the reader into his stories. I finished his first book on Haiti a year ago, just after the earthquake struck, and was deeply troubled, wondering what happened to all of the people he wrote about that I had connected with through his writing. This second book answers that for me, but that's about all it answers, which is a very good thing. In After Shock, Annan takes an honest and necessary--however uncomfortable at times--look at issues of faith, hope, love, and doubt that arose for him out of the rubble of the earthquake. If you have ever struggled with questions about your faith, but didn't know if it was okay to ask them out loud, you need to read this book. If you haven't had those struggles, then it will help you better connect with those who do. This is one of the most "real" books out there on doubt and faith.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It Got ME at the FIRST HELLO! January 20, 2011

By Che' Vyfhuis

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book came in on 1/18/2011. I was "itching" to read it ...got through the first early pages on the night of 1/19. It got me at the "first hello!" I cannot wait to sink my teeth into this book. It is about the CRISIS OF FAITH, which so many so-called Christians deny that they have from time to time. "Faith that can't withstand getting rocked by all of this (earthquakes and tsunamis) ought to crumble like those concrete buildings. But faith that isn't shaken by regular life isn't trustworthy either. Maybe this crisis of faith, this search for faith is something like yours."
If you've searched for FAITH during the "driest, longest desert" of your life...this is a book for you. "How Long, O Lord? How long?" I'm still searchng this question now. And it's not just about Haiti. It's about living in this world." Do you know WHAT Kent Annan means? If so...grab THE BOOK!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Faith in the Ruins July 20, 2011

By Edward Waffle

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Kent Annan wasn't in Haiti when the earthquake hit but in a way he had never left it. In "After Shock" he shows us the dark night of his soul as he confronts the what seems to be the casual malevolence of natural disaster wreaked upon an already collapsing society. An example of the chaotic absurdity following the quake is the son of a Haitian friend who was injured in a house collapse--unlike the thousands who were killed in collapses or who suffered without help, this young boy was rushed to a makeshift hospital by his father. His injuries, while frightening and painful, weren't life threatening but one the doctors realized that he was suffering from leukemia. He and his father got one of the last places on a mercy flight to Florida where he was taken to a hospital for treatment of his blood disorder. It is one of the many times that grace during times of trouble is shown--if not for the quake the leukemia wouldn't have been diagnosed in time to treat it or if discovered it wouldn't have been treated locally.

Kent Annan's Christian response is not the only valid one to such terrible suffering; existential nihilism and the realization of the ultimate nothingness of being could be another; a Buddhist might see the necessity for mindful compassion toward the injured and dying while realizing that it is part of their karmic destiny.

"After Shock" is extraordinarily well written. It reflects the jagged consciousness that afflicts everyone living in and through such entropic confusion. The short chapters jump around in time and place, going from Port-au-Prince to Miami to North Dakota, from the memories of the recent past to the sharp-edged reality of the author's present. Making sense of horror--an earthquake, a tsunami, the death of thousands or the death of one--may be impossible while it is happening or in the harrowing aftermath but Annan's faith, personal courage and his felt relationship with Christ, as he makes clear on page after page, is certainly a way through the worst of it.