A Look at a Book
by Breda Sunderland

BOOK REVIEW:

Total Truth: My Last Message to the
Whole Church in the Whole World

by Norman Grubb

I hold in my hand a precious inheritance. It is Norman Grubb’s “Last Message to the Whole Church in the Whole World.” In many ways it’s his spiritual last will and testament. This pamphlet, written when Norman was 95, is so intense and focused, so clear and inspiring. Above all it is direct and honest, shooting, as it were, “straight from the hip.” As one of the “‘rising army’ of co-knowers” who continues to be blessed abundantly by Norman’s “Total Truth” teaching, but who never actually met him, I found this message spoke to me very powerfully and personally.

The fundamental urgency of this pamphlet is palpable: Norman reiterates over and over that the Total Truth is a radical message. Someone else writing a last letter might be tempted to temper the urgency— with an eye, perhaps, to nostalgia or the “regard” of future generations. Not so Norman—knowing that this might well be his last message, he is keen to cut straight through to what the Spirit impels him to share. He defines the radical core of the Total Truth thus: “Simply put, it is that there is no such thing as independent self in the universe.”

Norman’s commission, which he supposes is a last glorious intercession, is for “a world-wide harvest” of “precious believers knowing who they already are.” The cost is unvarnished— the cutting off of reputations… ostracism and opposition. But his excitement is infectious as he describes the first evidence of completion: “Right now we are relatively few…. We are a ‘rising army’ of coknowers, witnesses and teacher-sharers, until that great day when ‘the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’ (Is. 11:9).”

An aspect of the pamphlet I found particularly helpful is how Norman traces the Total Truth very concisely through the Bible and shows how, starting with Paul’s earliest revelation, it has been manifest to the great mystics, from Boehme through William Law to George Muller, “the father of all present-day faith movements.” So, as Norman emphasises, the Total Truth is nothing new—it’s simply “God’s restored truth for our generation.”

It is well worth reading what Norman writes about “the problem of resistance from fellow believers” and “direct management” of the flock by “the Chief Shepherd.” His vision is of the body of co-knowers remaining as structureless as possible. I smiled at how Norman embraces the accusations of elitism and answers his accusers thus—“‘Yes, but that is just  what you are also!’ Can you be more holy than a walking Christ in your human form?”

Before this review becomes almost as long as the pamphlet itself, perhaps I should stop and urge you to read it for yourself!

Breda is vice-principal of a local second- level school in Ireland. She lives in Athy, County Kildare, with her children Maria (12) and Niall (11).