Local Resident Takes His Message To The World

By Nancy K. Crevier

As a stock and bonds market analyst and trainer of analysts on Wall Street, and as Exxon professor of accounting at Tulane University in Louisiana, Newtown resident Deen Kemsley has written many scholarly articles on finances and taxes over the years. However, Trust in the Lord, Reflections of Jesus Christ is a book that he wanted to write for nearly a quarter of a century, Mr Kemsley said in a recent interview. He finally committed himself over the past three years to putting the words in his heart onto paper in the collection of eight personal essays on Christ that will be on the shelves of bookstores as of February 29.

Previews of the book have earned praise from notable Christian authors and theologians, historians, and leaders of corporations.

“Impressive and moving,” said Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw in a recent press release. “Deen [Kemsley] teaches of the absolute comfort, wisdom, and power that fills the hearts of all true believers,” said the former president of the New York Knicks and CEO of Madison Square Garden David Checketts. Christian author and theologian Craig Blomberg called the book “uplifting and encouraging.”

It is all praise that pleases Mr Kemsley, but he hopes that the appeal of the book will be much broader than that of seminary students and Christian scholars.

“We all have moments of despair,” he said. “I do a lot of teaching, so I see a lot of people in front of me at a time. When I talk to them individually, I would say about half of them are struggling somehow. We all face setbacks at one time or another.”

Trust in the Lord is not just a collection of personal accounts of being “saved” or “born again.” The eight essays explore Mr Kemsley’s doubts, his own setbacks, his successes, and always his conviction that Jesus Christ is there for everybody and loves each and every person. “Even nonbelievers are acting in accord to the principles of God whispering to their hearts,” said Mr Kemsley, “whether they recognize it or not.”

Each of the chapters in his book is preceded by an affirmation that Mr Kemsley elaborates upon through tales pulled from his childhood, his life with his wife and nine children, his working life, his life as a teacher, his travels, and even his own encounter with Hurricane Katrina. The lessons of love, light, healing power, faith, joy, gratitude, forgiveness, peace, and trust that he has learned to live by are all ones that Mr Kemsley offers to the reader for their own ponderings and as a guide to a journey in faith.

He is of the belief that all security and happiness comes from God, from Jesus Christ. The book offers a path for “readers to look within themselves and find the light and peace of Jesus Christ, the only name under heaven through which we can be saved,” writes Mr Kemsley. “I see the book as a spiritual portal to receive the Lord. I hope as people read the book that they will feel the spirit of God descend on them and guide them.”

It is purely coincidental that his book, affirming the presence and power of Jesus Christ, has been published following on the heels of the successful and contrary God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, said Mr Kemsley. “It really was not written in direct response to that book, they just came together at the same time. I had to be a little bit brave to write and publish Trust in the Lord, and I’m sure there will be those who don’t believe. But I’m hoping that by opening up [my own experiences] to the readers, it will help them open up to the experience of God in their lives. To have a real relationship with someone, you need to open up,” he said.

Mr Kemsley straddles many lives himself: professor, husband, father of nine, broker, and financial analyst, among them. He travels weekly between Tulane University and Newtown, and trains analysts for many Wall Street banks. Life in the affluent town of Newtown could easily be filled with material temptations of life and the many hats he wears could easily draw him into a life of spiritual void. “Maybe that is something that has pushed me to look so into the spiritual side of my life. It’s easy to forget who you are,” he said. His personal anecdotes recorded in the book look at the many ways in which his life has been touched by the peace he has found in his belief, and he repeatedly urges readers to look within themselves and open themselves to the possibilities offered by trusting in the Lord.

Mr Kemsley noted that he is a firm believer both in science and in God. In both his youth and later years, he explored his belief in God’s existence, an existence that he knew was not provable to the scientific world. What he determined is that it is possible to love both God and science.

“In God we only have so much information and in science we also have incomplete information, there are always new theories, new discoveries. There is no doubt that God is there and that he loves us. As you trust, the inner whisperer within you starts to make sense,” he said. Trust in the Lord is a way for the reader to more fully know, rather than learn about, Jesus Christ, said Mr Kemsley, and to learn to listen to the voice within.

One of the unique aspects of the book, Mr Kemsley believes, is that it has been previewed by many people of different faiths and has been positively received. He also appeared in the half-hour program The Good Life on Florida’s Christian television station TV45 on Thursday, February 8, before returning to Newtown for the weekend. “I see [the book] as very universal in the Christian world, and that is what I set out to do when I wrote it. Even beyond the Christian life, if you just substitute the word ‘God’ throughout, it is accessible to anyone.”

He admits in his forward that some of his experiences could be a bit skewed by time. However, he writes, “There is no error in the central message I convey, which is that God is there, he hears our prayers, and he loves us.”

Deen Kemsley’s book Trust in the Lord, Reflections of Jesus Christ, can be preordered at Amazon.com or purchased in local bookstores after February 29.