What do you think?
Rate this book
After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken
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 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. Are there questions or realities your faith can't handle? Kent wrote After Shock to help you find out.
137 pages, Paperback
First published December 14, 2010
7 people are currently reading
213 people want to read
About the author
Kent Annan
6 books42 followersKent Annan is author of "You Welcomed Me," "Slow Kingdom Coming," "After Shock," and "Following Jesus through the Eye of the Needle." He is director of humanitarian and disaster leadership at Wheaton College, where he provides leadership to the M.A. program within the Humanitarian Disaster Institute. He is cofounder of Haiti Partners, a senior consultant for DAI, and a board member of the philanthropic foundation Equitas Group. He teaches adult education in his local church and speaks regularly to groups around the country. Kent is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div.). He and his wife have two children.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
March 22, 2013
Missionary Kent Annan questions the existence of God's grace after Haiti's catastrophic earthquake. While Annan was vacationing at home in the US, the earthquake struck. Annan returns to check on schools, friends and colleagues and finds the country reduced to rubble and some friends and acquaintances dead or missing and others escaping with barely their lives.
The damage causes Annan to question his own faith and attempt to answer the reasons why --- why Haiti, a country with a population already in dire straits. The author finds no easy answers, but does determine that in order to live, one must push forward and have faith that things will get better.
This was a free book, care of Goodreads.
The damage causes Annan to question his own faith and attempt to answer the reasons why --- why Haiti, a country with a population already in dire straits. The author finds no easy answers, but does determine that in order to live, one must push forward and have faith that things will get better.
This was a free book, care of Goodreads.
August 3, 2016
I can only reiterate what one reviewer wrote:
"It was written by someone, who, while a Believer, is always questioning his faith and asking the hard questions about God, about Life."
I think we have all asked these questions - different circumstances...but questions that are asked worldwide. Thankful for his brutal honesty..sometimes I think some of us are afraid to ask or admit we have these doubts/questions - assuring to know I am not the only one.
"It was written by someone, who, while a Believer, is always questioning his faith and asking the hard questions about God, about Life."
I think we have all asked these questions - different circumstances...but questions that are asked worldwide. Thankful for his brutal honesty..sometimes I think some of us are afraid to ask or admit we have these doubts/questions - assuring to know I am not the only one.
March 14, 2022
I loved this short and punchy book. It is well written and deals with serious questions with humility and humanity.
Trying to make a coherent theodicy to deal with tragedy and the wanton grief usually ends up feeling cold. Annan instead brings up his real questions and fears and works through the reality of the confusion that faces us in tragedy. Why do some survive and have tremendous or miraculous situations of "blessing" while others are squished by rubble or killed by disease? These questions aren't answered well by neat and tidy answers. Instead, Annan proposes that the Christian response is looking to the paradox of our faith and recognizing that our God is both close and extremely distant, powerful yet seemingly absent. This leaves serious doubts but to have an honest faith, these doubts need to be allowed and explored.
Trying to make a coherent theodicy to deal with tragedy and the wanton grief usually ends up feeling cold. Annan instead brings up his real questions and fears and works through the reality of the confusion that faces us in tragedy. Why do some survive and have tremendous or miraculous situations of "blessing" while others are squished by rubble or killed by disease? These questions aren't answered well by neat and tidy answers. Instead, Annan proposes that the Christian response is looking to the paradox of our faith and recognizing that our God is both close and extremely distant, powerful yet seemingly absent. This leaves serious doubts but to have an honest faith, these doubts need to be allowed and explored.
March 2, 2018
This was truly a phenomenal book. Witnessing the raw faith of Annan gives me a little more courage to genuinely follow Christ in the midst of crisis--even if that discipleship comes through questions, tears, and doubt.
"We don't have to minimize either suffering or uncertainty. Our love for truth can help protect us from ourselves and from worshiping an untrue god that can't survive the trail of this world. Let our faith too be nailed regularly to the cross of this world. Any faith that dies there was dead to begin with. What is resurrected is Life."
"We don't have to minimize either suffering or uncertainty. Our love for truth can help protect us from ourselves and from worshiping an untrue god that can't survive the trail of this world. Let our faith too be nailed regularly to the cross of this world. Any faith that dies there was dead to begin with. What is resurrected is Life."
December 12, 2020
Annan's honest Christian faith is surrounded by brokenness. This book is filled with memoirs and reflections upon sheer brokenness after the Haitian earthquake. What's refreshing about this book is its lack of an apologist agenda to defend God or to rationalize his faith. Instead, like Annan claims it to be, this book is his psalm that invites readers to live in a world where a good and powerful God decides to be present in the suffering instead of preventing it at all cost.
April 5, 2021
Confused for the first few chapters. I was waiting on the punchline and realized I was it.
This is not about Haiti, the people, or their neverending cleanup. Shame on me. Authors let you know with synopses and covers.
This is a good surprise. I felt myself reading a found diary. Someone who was and does have the same internal and external battles with their faith as I do. Raw and refreshing, thus my diary comparison.
This is not about Haiti, the people, or their neverending cleanup. Shame on me. Authors let you know with synopses and covers.
This is a good surprise. I felt myself reading a found diary. Someone who was and does have the same internal and external battles with their faith as I do. Raw and refreshing, thus my diary comparison.
July 9, 2018
After reading excerpts for a class, I wanted to read the whole book. Written as a reflection on grieving, trauma, trauma response, and processing catastrophe,After Shock invites the reader into introspection. I'd recommend reading this as a devotional, as there are poignant pieces that beg deeper consideration.
April 8, 2021
I wasn’t sure about this book at first, but by the end, I really appreciated the honest wrestle with faith. The authenticity and rawness of the book leaves no room for anything less than honest faith, and I think the readers are better off because of it.
November 13, 2023
The author, an aid worker in Haiti at the time of the devastating earthquake, grapples with the question of Christian theodicy. He does not resort to easy platitudes or dense theological arguments, but simply invites the reader into his honest struggle. 3.5 star
June 22, 2011
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.
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.
April 23, 2011
After Shock – Kent Annan
January 2011 an earthquake shaked Haiti’s world, and many of those who had ties to the people and ministries in Haiti. Kent Annan has worked in Haiti for many years and was in the USA when the earthquake happened. 6 days later he landed back in Haiti to see the devastation. This book chronicles Kent’s faith as he sees first hand trauma as well as the continuation of faith in God by those most affected.
As Kent sits amongst what once was a church he says “The rubble seems like evidence of God’s absence or abandonment, and yet here I sit, talking and eating the rubbled body of Christ. (in a church service taking communion). Here week after week, people come to find Jeuss. The rubble may make him harder to find, but maybe, like the rafters in the center of this leveled church, he never left and never will.”
The book starts out just like a person going through the stages of a death and leads to the ending emotional of acceptance and the realization that in the tragedy, God is still present.
When I started this book I didn’t care for it. I felt like the author was being to unforgiving, too transparent for me..someone who hasn’t lived through the tragedy. I decided to muddle through it and was glad I did as I began to see Kent’s progressing through the emotional phases, and coming to the honest faith he was searching for. I just loved the stories of the Haitian people and all that they had gone through, yet in their loss they still praised God. The Haitian Christians have earned my deepest respect in a situation that I am not sure many in America could endure and still come out with their faith intact on the other side.
“It was like the world was ending and Jesus didn’t show up…but then God did, when_________ came and was so kind”. A stranger. A friend. Offering encouragement or a meal, a job or a room to stay in.” It was easy to see the love of Jesus in the midst of the tragedy.
January 2011 an earthquake shaked Haiti’s world, and many of those who had ties to the people and ministries in Haiti. Kent Annan has worked in Haiti for many years and was in the USA when the earthquake happened. 6 days later he landed back in Haiti to see the devastation. This book chronicles Kent’s faith as he sees first hand trauma as well as the continuation of faith in God by those most affected.
As Kent sits amongst what once was a church he says “The rubble seems like evidence of God’s absence or abandonment, and yet here I sit, talking and eating the rubbled body of Christ. (in a church service taking communion). Here week after week, people come to find Jeuss. The rubble may make him harder to find, but maybe, like the rafters in the center of this leveled church, he never left and never will.”
The book starts out just like a person going through the stages of a death and leads to the ending emotional of acceptance and the realization that in the tragedy, God is still present.
When I started this book I didn’t care for it. I felt like the author was being to unforgiving, too transparent for me..someone who hasn’t lived through the tragedy. I decided to muddle through it and was glad I did as I began to see Kent’s progressing through the emotional phases, and coming to the honest faith he was searching for. I just loved the stories of the Haitian people and all that they had gone through, yet in their loss they still praised God. The Haitian Christians have earned my deepest respect in a situation that I am not sure many in America could endure and still come out with their faith intact on the other side.
“It was like the world was ending and Jesus didn’t show up…but then God did, when_________ came and was so kind”. A stranger. A friend. Offering encouragement or a meal, a job or a room to stay in.” It was easy to see the love of Jesus in the midst of the tragedy.
February 3, 2012
Cataclysmic earthquakes do more than shake our physical world. Voltaire wrote Candide following the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon as a response the Leibniz' almost too casual explanation that "this was the best of all possible worlds."
Kent Annan, co-director of Haiti Partners, a development and education ministry in Haiti, writes compellingly of his own faith struggles in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. He deals with the incongruities of 230,001 lives lost and the life of a Haitian child saved because relief workers detected severe childhood leukemia. He explores all the questions of why that one would ask with a painful honesty toward both God and his readers.
And he describes the honest faith that comes out of this that does not run away from the suffering but sees the suffering Christ on the cross. He describes a faith that doesn't have all the answers but at the same time understands that we are part of God's answer in caring for a suffering world. And all this in 129 pages!
What I so appreciate is that Annan resorts neither to cliched answers nor easy skepticism that are often our responses to unbearable pain. Instead, he explores what it means to go to God with questions, anger, pain, and doubt and press through these with God to the other side of deeper understanding and an honest faith.
Kent Annan, co-director of Haiti Partners, a development and education ministry in Haiti, writes compellingly of his own faith struggles in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. He deals with the incongruities of 230,001 lives lost and the life of a Haitian child saved because relief workers detected severe childhood leukemia. He explores all the questions of why that one would ask with a painful honesty toward both God and his readers.
And he describes the honest faith that comes out of this that does not run away from the suffering but sees the suffering Christ on the cross. He describes a faith that doesn't have all the answers but at the same time understands that we are part of God's answer in caring for a suffering world. And all this in 129 pages!
What I so appreciate is that Annan resorts neither to cliched answers nor easy skepticism that are often our responses to unbearable pain. Instead, he explores what it means to go to God with questions, anger, pain, and doubt and press through these with God to the other side of deeper understanding and an honest faith.
July 19, 2013
Kent Annan’s new book After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World is Shaken is a quick read, but it packs a punch. Like Annan’s first book, this one is brutally honest and at times rather uncomfortable, reading more like the kind of personal journal most of us would keep to ourselves. The theme of theodicy runs throughout, coupled with the problem of suffering and all the questions left unanswered after a tragedy of the magnitude of the Haiti quake with its 230,001 dead (the figure he cites throughout as a reminder that every life lost counts). In other words, why did this “act of God” have to happen in the first place, considering the orthodox Christian belief in an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God?
It’s something that’s confounded many down through the ages, so I hope it’s not a plot-spoiler to say that Annan doesn’t resolve the issue in these 120-odd pages. And as I said, some of the questions he asks and the ways he describes his own spiritual wrestling — including doubt and anger — are uncomfortable to read. On the other hand, he tells stories of remarkable hope and faith and joy emerging from Haiti’s rubble among his friends there...
- See more at: http://tjhoiland.com/wordpress/2011/0...
It’s something that’s confounded many down through the ages, so I hope it’s not a plot-spoiler to say that Annan doesn’t resolve the issue in these 120-odd pages. And as I said, some of the questions he asks and the ways he describes his own spiritual wrestling — including doubt and anger — are uncomfortable to read. On the other hand, he tells stories of remarkable hope and faith and joy emerging from Haiti’s rubble among his friends there...
- See more at: http://tjhoiland.com/wordpress/2011/0...
March 31, 2014
"With every crisis of faith, what we believe is crucified, and then we wait expectantly, whether in defeat or in joyful hope, to see what part of our faith is resurrected." (page 128)
Annan's second book is summarized best by the line I just included above from the book. Based off of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Annan takes himself - and invites the reader along - on a journey of shaken faith. Using stories and analogies birthed from the earthquake in the country he loves and has been serving for years Annan explores what to do with a faith that has been shaken and is experiencing after shocks. His honesty is refreshing, his doubts real, his conclusions hopeful. What our faith has been leveled what is found in the rubble? Is God in the rubble? Does God even care? Why would God allow these things to happen? Why, If, What, How - all questions that we have freedom to wrestle through. And Annan honestly shares his wrestling matches with God over these very questions and more. Annan gives an honest voice to the reality of a faith filled life.
Annan's second book is summarized best by the line I just included above from the book. Based off of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Annan takes himself - and invites the reader along - on a journey of shaken faith. Using stories and analogies birthed from the earthquake in the country he loves and has been serving for years Annan explores what to do with a faith that has been shaken and is experiencing after shocks. His honesty is refreshing, his doubts real, his conclusions hopeful. What our faith has been leveled what is found in the rubble? Is God in the rubble? Does God even care? Why would God allow these things to happen? Why, If, What, How - all questions that we have freedom to wrestle through. And Annan honestly shares his wrestling matches with God over these very questions and more. Annan gives an honest voice to the reality of a faith filled life.
August 12, 2013
"After Shock" is Wonderful book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You may have asked this question many times. Most people do, and the truth is we may never know. Read how others have dealt with tragedy, loss, and suffering while placing their hope in God. When it comes to matters of the heart staying true to the Father, despite the struggle, is what matters most.In the book he first talks about his own struggles and wrestling with God. He asks the question that many Christians don’t like to think about,
“How could a loving God allow so many innocent people to die/suffer like this?” It’s a question that can shake a man’s faith to the core. Kent in his book searches for what real, authentic faith looks like. And he seems to find it in places that he may not have expected it.For Kent, the shocks and aftershocks refer to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti last year. They also refer to the shocks and aftershocks to his faith. Call it, as he does, a "crisis of faith."
“How could a loving God allow so many innocent people to die/suffer like this?” It’s a question that can shake a man’s faith to the core. Kent in his book searches for what real, authentic faith looks like. And he seems to find it in places that he may not have expected it.For Kent, the shocks and aftershocks refer to the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti last year. They also refer to the shocks and aftershocks to his faith. Call it, as he does, a "crisis of faith."
January 5, 2015
A personal book on developing a theology of God in the face of tremendous suffering. Annan openly admits how the suffering he has seen has brought his traditional views of God into doubt (focusing on his experiences after the 2009 Haitian earthquake), and asks how we can develop a view of God that can deal with the reality of the world as it is. Annan doesn't give all the answers, but he asks some of the most important questions, and honestly shares where he has been at in answering those questions for himself. The book is raw, compassionate, and deep, without ever getting abtract or simplistic. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was because of it's short length – when I finished the book I wanted more.
to-read-someday-maybe
February 18, 2011One of Jamie Arpin-Ricci's "2 Favorite Books of 2010":
http://www.missional.ca/2010/12/books...
The other is my favorite book of 2010: When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves
http://www.missional.ca/2010/12/books...
The other is my favorite book of 2010: When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves
May 7, 2011
I got this book on First Reads.
When I first wanted to read this book, I expected it to be more of a story of what happened in Haiti. I really wasn't looking for a book focused on finding God (which is my fault because I obviously didn't read the description carefully enough), but I found the book to be repetitive and exhausting. The parts of the book I liked were the anecdotes about particular people and their stories of what happened during the earthquake.
When I first wanted to read this book, I expected it to be more of a story of what happened in Haiti. I really wasn't looking for a book focused on finding God (which is my fault because I obviously didn't read the description carefully enough), but I found the book to be repetitive and exhausting. The parts of the book I liked were the anecdotes about particular people and their stories of what happened during the earthquake.
May 5, 2011
I won this book in a Firstreads giveaway (thanks!).
Some of the author's probings into how to wrestle through suffering while trying to hold on to faith make you cringe, but whether you embrace what he's saying or wondering how he could feel the way he does, you have to appreciate his honesty, vulnerability, and willingness to push you to ask similar questions for yourself. And I always appreciate a book that makes me think.
Some of the author's probings into how to wrestle through suffering while trying to hold on to faith make you cringe, but whether you embrace what he's saying or wondering how he could feel the way he does, you have to appreciate his honesty, vulnerability, and willingness to push you to ask similar questions for yourself. And I always appreciate a book that makes me think.
July 11, 2011
I really enjoyed this book. It was a very real look at the tough questions of God in the midst of crisis, with the overlay of the Haitian Earthquake. It was incredibly moving and made the tragedy all the more personal as you read story after story of life and death through the eyes of the survivors. This book reminded me a lot of the death of our dreams and the resurrection of new ones, especially in the midst of crisis.
January 9, 2012
I first read Kent Annan's book Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle, a wonderful memoir of how God called him and his wife and grew His heart for the people of Haiti. After Shock is his deeply personal, transparent account of his struggles of faith and doubt in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.
"...ultimately the happiest people are actually people who allow themselves to experience the full gamut of human emotions when they arise..."
"...ultimately the happiest people are actually people who allow themselves to experience the full gamut of human emotions when they arise..."
February 16, 2011
Kent continues the description of his faith journey through living the disaster that is Haiti. Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life, writes "This is a book I will read over and over, for inspiration and for comfort." His poetic writing speaks to me and I will also read it again. We met in Vero Beach in January. I so respect him.
June 21, 2012
Kent shares what it has been like for him to encounter the pain and suffering in Haiti, after the earthquake. He does so from his own journey and struggle to be a person of faith, asking himself (and the reader) the hard questions of why this tragic situation, especially as it impacts personal friends. I strongly recommend it.
June 11, 2013
A realistic, honest account of the author's questioning God, faith and meaning of life after coming back to earth-quake destroyed Haiti where he had many friends.
Poetic in style with painful stories and heart-breaking tragedy yet uplifting and encouraging showing how a strong faith can come out on the other side of death and disaster.
Poetic in style with painful stories and heart-breaking tragedy yet uplifting and encouraging showing how a strong faith can come out on the other side of death and disaster.
July 6, 2011
I really resonated with this book. Kent Annan eloquently and rawly expresses many of my faith stuggles in this world where there is so much pain and suffering but definitely with a look toward hope and faith in God. A very quick read but one that I'd enjoy reading over and over.
August 6, 2011
I gave this book 5 stars because it really spoke to me because my world has been shaken....hard. This was not a polemic by a person who knows "the truth." It was written by someone, who, while a Believer, is always questioning his faith and asking the hard questions about God, about Life.
November 17, 2012
Excellent read.
May 16, 2011
Very much like a collection of Psalms, a raw, unbridled outpouring of emotion, confusion, and struggle.
August 8, 2011
i can't finish this :(
March 21, 2012
While I didn't love the writing, I found some of the ideas insightful, encouraging, and convicting at the same time.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews