Customer Reviews

The Man Who Moved a Mountain

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The "Man Who Moved A Mountain" was first published as a hardback edition in 1970. The price of $5.95 seemed high to many people, so the second printing in 1972, and all subsequent printings, have been large paperbacks. Thirty years later the book remains in print, a testament to its continued popularity. This book is about my grandfather, the Rev. Robert W. Childress, Sr. Bob Childress was born in Patrick County, Virginia in 1890. His parents were poor and uneducated as were many of the people living in the region at the time. He grew up in an environment where brandy was god, for it was brandy that made life bearable. When he was fifteen, he earned his first five dollar bill from cutting timber. He walked seven miles to Mount Airy, NC and bought an Iver Johnson .32 caliber revolver for two dollars. The next five years of his life were spent mostly "as a heller." Much of the time he was either getting drunk or sobering up. But one day, after several hours of gambling and drinking, he found himself at a church revival. He never knew how he got there, but when the altar call was given, something inside urged him to answer. As he knelt, there was no sudden revelation, only peace. Although his life did not turn around completely that night, it was the beginning of a transformation that would lead to his decision to become an ordained Presbyterian minister. Not an easy task for someone with a seventh grade education and a family to support. The events that transpired during the course of his remarkable life truly demonstrate that our God is indeed an awesome God! Throughout the years many people who have read the book have commented on what a great man Bob Childress was. They are impressed by the impact he had on people and say he won many souls for Christ. But my grandfather would be the first to say that he personally never won a single soul for Christ, it was the power of the Holy Spirit working through him. Without that power to sustain and guide him, he would not have had a fruitful ministry. The beauty of this story is that it demonstrates how God uses ordinary, seemingly insignificant people, to accomplish extraordinary things. To learn more about Bob Childress and a project in progress to preserve and continue his ministry go to www.buffalo-mountain.org.

He stood six feet tall, hard as a chestnut log, and once thundered to his rock-hurling, moonshine-swilling neighbors, "If I can't preach the love of God into you, I'll beat the Devil out'n you!" At the same time, this deeply compassionate and committed man drove 50,000 miles a year over roads hardly fit for horses to serve churches and visit shut-ins, in order that his people might live free in the Spirit. In confronting a culture founded on 190-proof alcoholism, gunslinging violence, fatalistic hopelessness, and bridgeless remoteness, Bob Childress was a spiritual 'Braveheart' to the mountain folk, a Moses shouting, "Devil, let my people go!"

Seldom a week goes by that I fail to consult this book as a supplement to my Bible readings. Mr. Davids's account of Reverend Bob Childress is a laboratory manual and field guide for my spiritual exercises. To love as Christ loved means giving a ride to an enemy through the snow. To have faith in God is to believe his love never gives up, and to confront in that love a liquor peddler on church grounds. Doing God's work means to enable release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, through building schools and helping people see that religion is the way you walk, a force for good.

We need the stories of people like Bob Childress, who courageously and faithfully lived out what the Bible teaches. Much of what Bob Childress fought is still with us today, throughout America: idleness among video-gamers, gunslinging violence endemic in school and workplace, and fatalistic hopelessness in voter apathy. This book stirs me toward a working faith in a brighter future. It reminds me of the dignity of a purposeful human life and of the value of even the remotest human soul, no matter how sick and lost.

My husband found this book at a garage sale. He couldn't put it down and related many of the anecdotes to me. I have read this book, since, over and over. There is a sweetness and goodness to it that transforms it from a biography of a great man, to an inspiring book that relates to the possibility for each of us to make our life worthwhile. It is down to earth, funny and wise, a story of a person that lived an amazing life told in a very compelling manner. An encapsulation of the "best" of America's essence.
Anyone who likes history or,especially, anyone who likes Janice Holt Giles books or Forrest Carter will love this book. It is one I return to when I am disenchanted and depressed for a lift.

This is one of the best. I read it 14 years ago and am ready to read it again. Why? Because it is true and because it is a character builder-not one which tears down character.

Was difficult to put the book down. Reminded me a little of "It's a wonderful life" only better.

This is the story of Bob Childress, a mountain man educated late in life, who as a Presbyterian minister transformed an area of the Appalachian mountains. This area of Southwest Virginia is located only 250 miles from our nation's capital but an entirely different world. The area had been home to Robert E. Lee's brother and several other Lee family members as well. George Washington worked to survey the area around where the events of this book took place.

The Blue Ridge Mountains and particularly Buffalo Mountain were notorious for Liquor-dealing, stills, lawless killing and feuding. The people were isolated with little medical care beyond what could be provided by a grannywoman. Education was feared and not sought after because you had to go outside of the mountain to get it or come from the outside to bring it in. Even the Hardshell Baptist preachers of the area mixed liquor with revivals and most were illiterate.

Bob loved his people and saw the fierce loyalty of his people. He felt that if this loyalty was turned to Jesus that the whole area would flourish. He knew only The Lord could transform the hatred and the hold alcohol had on these people.

This book is his story and his life as he touched the lives of the mountain people against fierce opposition and terrible hardship and poverty. It is more than just his story though, because it gives a little understanding to the way of life in this and other barely acccessible out of the way mountain places.

I had previously read the book CHRISTY by Catherine Marshall as well as THE STORY OF ALVIN YORK . Though THE MAN WHO MOVED A MOUNTIN took place on a different mountain in a different state, it was the same culture and way of life. Through this book I had a clearer picture on all the superstition of the daily lives of the people and why they feared outsiders so much. I was able to better understand what they ate and how they provided for their family. This book gives a little more details about the source of the heritage and the language differences than any other book I had read. It was interesting to learn and be reminded that many words they used came straight from Chaucer and Shakespeare handed down for 200 years unchanged. The Scotch-Irish misture of the main root heritage was an interesting fact as well. Inheriting the love of drink from Irish roots and the fierce determination and hard work from the Scottish.

253 pages with actual photgraphs of people mentioned in the book. Biography with many names and events throughout. The storyline is connected in time to the depression and World war I

This is one of the best books I have ever read. It is amazing what this man, through following God, accomplished.

A must read!

A friend found this book in an exchange box at her cancer treatment center and picked it up. After she read it she shared it with me and we both liked it so much that we had the girls in our book club read it. We live in Virginia so it was very interesting and also an inspiration. It definitely shows Christianity in action and how one person can make a difference when they give their life to Christ as His servant.

Moonshine stills, gun slinging, a '34 Chevy with a jersey cow in the back seat . . . The pages of The Man Who Moved a Mountain are filled with one man's true adventures living and ministering in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia during the first half of the 20th century. This is an entertaining, thought-provoking, easy to read, and inspiring story of the difference one man can make when he is completely sold out to God's leading in his life.

First published in 1970 and reprinted many times, this book is endearing to those who are familiar with the Southern Virginia mountains, those who enjoy history and the local color of isolated regions of America, those who enjoy testimonies of God's power at work around us, those who, like me, are actually related to the this mountain-moving man (Bob Childress was my great great uncle), and those who just enjoy great story-telling.

This book is so amazing. It is a window to a world,thankfully that does
not exist anymore. The author describes how God used a man to bring a whole group of people out of sin and ignorance.
I bought the book because it has my ancestors in it. My father was a pretty wild man. My mother divorced him when I was small because of his violence and drinking. My father's father is mentioned in the book and now I understand my father's problems much more clearly. There is such a thing as generational sin! The book is great for someone with ancestors that came from the mountains of Virginia or North Carolina. I am sure the lifestyle was pretty much the same in any early mountain community.