New Reviews: Church, Bible, and Culture
Today we present an exciting lineup of fairly influential books. You may disagree with some of them, but their impact - or that of their authors - on the Christian Church in America (and in one case, in the United Kingdom) is undeniable.
Rewinding back to 1990 and the important Turning Point Series from Crossway Books, Leslie Wiggins' review of More Than Kindness: A Compassionate Approach to Crisis Childbearing by Marvin and Susan Olasky suggests that although much headway has been made in the arena since 1990, there is still far to go. She suggests an updated reprint is in order (hint hint, Crossway).
We post three Tim Challies reviews:
Derek and Rosemary Thomas' introduction to the Song of Solomon, entitled A Biblical Guide to Love, Sex, and Marriage. I always appreciate it when these types of books are written by husband and wife teams.
Thabiti Anyabwile's 9 Marks book What Is A Healthy Church Member? breaks no new ground but is a solid reminder of what constitutes a contributing member in the life of the Church.
Christian justice advocate Shane Claiborne's book The Irresistible Revolution does not fulfill its titular mandate for Tim, who suggests we would be well served to resist reading it.
Finally, new Discerning Reader reviewer - not new to book reviewing, however - Trevin Wax contributes two reviews:
N.T. Wright's popular adaption of his massive book The Resurrection of the Son of God is entitled Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church and contains much that is good, but is still too problematic for the casual reader, according to Trevin.
Trevin cannot praise Stephen Nichols' cultural history Jesus Made in America too highly. He commends it for its Christ-centeredness and calls it one of the best books he has read all year.
Yet more summer reading awaits as we will be back next week with a new batch of reviews.
"I Took My Lamp" by E. Stanley Jones
"I Took My Lamp" is not the title of a long-lost book by twentieth-century missionary E. Stanley Jones, but the title of a poem found in one of his books, Christ of the Indian Road. As I have been preparing the high school English courses I teach for the start of the coming school year, I came across this poem in my files. It never ceases to affect me. I've taken the liberty of titling it according to its opening line.
I took my lamp and went and sat
Where men of another creed and custom
Dwelt together in bonds of common search.
I pressed my lamp close to my bosom,
Lest adverse winds of thought and criticism,
And the damp of unsympathy should snuff it out.
And many a trembling prayer hung upon my lips.
But I determined that I would love – just love.
I loved and listened and learned, and now and then
Threw in a thought or word or observation.
I heard their gentle speech, saw their mild ways;
Felt the Hand of Peace rest gently on my soul.
Here was not the tearing of the flesh,
Nor the fierce agony of the spirit, in its quest for God.
They gently searched and, through the crevices of their thought,
The light of the Father’s Face streamed in.
They caught the footfalls of the Mighty Spirit,
As he moved each moment through palpitating Nature.
And I heard them tune their heart-strings to catch the music
Of God, as he hummed and sang through things.
But when, in sympathetic talk and mutual quest,
I asked the learned pundit whether he had found
A “jiwan mukta,” one who knew deliverance here and now;
He sadly shook his head and said, “I have not seen.”
In his voice spoke an aching world: “I have not seen.”
Then there stole within my heart a quiet joy;
For I saw, amid the search of peoples and race,
One standing, who, with Chalice in hand, offered here and now
To thirsty souls a crystal draught of life eternal,
Which, if a man drink, he shall never thirst again.
Had I not drunk? Had he not put the Chalice
To my parched lips and, with thirst assuaged,
Had not my happy soul gone singing down the years?
A child had thus revealed to him, through prayer and
Surrender of the mind and will, that for which
The wise and prudent had vainly searched
And caught but glimpses; while I, unworthy,
Stood face to Face.
As I pondered thus, I glanced, with trembling, at my lamp –
And lo, it burned up brighter than before!
Many elements of this poem reveal a master wordsmith. The two that stick out to me the most are 1) the use of 'and' in this line: I loved and listened and learned, and now and then, and 2) the capitalization of the word face when referring to the Father. I could go on - Jones' poem recalls Francis Thompson's poem "The Hound of Heaven", but that's a topic for another poetry post...
New Reviews: a Puritan, a Pastor, and a Professor
...and they're up.
Tim Challies' contribution this week is a 4-in-1 special from Mark Driscoll. Driscoll's church, Mars Hill in Seattle, is heavily composed of new Christians, so Driscoll began to release a series of booklets addressing issues of theology and ecclesiology. On the Old Testament, On the New Testament, On Church Leadership and On Who Is God? are the four titles released by Crossway Books thus far, with more on the way.
Jacob Hantla, a new father, provides two reviews this week.
Peter R. Jones, a presbyterian churchman with a few years on Driscoll, has written many books, The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back: An Old Heresy for the New Age among them. Via Jones, Jacob reminds us that the gnostic heresy has not gone away; it is simply wearing new names.
Jacob also reviews Keeping the Heart by John Flavel, a puritan pastor with centuries on both Jones and Driscoll. One of the easier Puritans to read, Jacob recommends the Soli Deo Gloria edition, which includes a helpful outline of the book for the sake of navigation.
Finally, Happy Fourth of July tomorrow to our American readers. It's a sure bet that we'll be back next week with more reviews, many of whom are bound to be fine American churchmen and women. Please consider it our tip of the hat to the fine nation to the south of Canada.
Tuesdays are for Reviews
The stack of books that Discerning Reader's reviewers have read in the past couple of weeks is so eclectic that I suspect anyone will be able to find suitable summer reading amongst them. We have read theology, Christian living, biography, apologetics, and history books both classic and contemporary. To be specific...
Headlining this batch of reviews (and garnering a reprint on the Reformation Theology website) is James Anderson's masterful review of the venerable Robert Reymond's new apologetics book entitled Faith's Reasons for Believing. Set aside plenty of time if you intend to take on this meaty volume this summer.
Also in the theological vein are reviews of 1) Arthur Pink's classic Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross (please note the Canadian spelling!) summatively reviewed by Tim Challies at the end of his most recent "Reading Classics Together" effort over at Challies Dot Com; 2) my reviews of Vaughan Roberts' excellent little primer on the nature of true Christian worship, suitably entitled True Worship; and 3) Larry Dyer's slim credobaptist manual entitled Baptism: The Believer's First Obedience. We recommend all of the above.
For history and/or biography buffs, one or two or all of the following books may intrigue. From one of many suggested reading lists produced by Al Mohler, Tim read and reviewed the thrilling sunken submarine account Escape from the Deep by Alex Kershaw, and the singular scientific biography The Snake Charmer, which Tim calls a book unlike any other he has ever read. If snakes aren't really up your alley, perhaps Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer is: Tim has favorably reviewed the newest Schaeffer biography, An Authentic Life by Colin Duriez. Or you might want to attempt a book Tim almost didn't review, but is glad he did: Heaven Without Her: A Desperate Daughter's Search for the Heart of Her Mother's Faith. Just the subtitle is heartrending!
Ladies last, but certainly not least: Leslie Wiggins reviewed Elyse Fitzpatrick's latest book, Because He Loves Me, and heartily recommends it. Beneath its unassuming title lies a potentially life-transforming message, Leslie warns.
Next week we'll be back with some more great summer reading. Now, have at'em!
New Reviews: Almost Too Much To Tell
To make up for last week's silence, today I am reporting on the last two week's worth of reviews.
In honor of the Banner of Truth Minister's Conference, we posted three reviews of Banner books: God's Righteous Kingdom by Walter Chantry, The Doctrine of Repentance, a Puritan Paperback by Thomas Watson, and Sinclair Ferguson's meaty volume on the thought of John Owen in John Owen and the Christian Life. We unhesitatingly recommended all three books.
As promised, Leslie Wiggins supplied the second installment of reviews of Lydia Brownback's new On-The-Go Devotionals from Crossway. She ranks Contentment: A Godly Woman's Adornment just as high as she did the first devotional, Trust.
In the past two weeks, Tim Challies posted five reviews of five disparate books.
23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Wiese is a companion volume for Don Piper's 90 Minutes in Heaven, and presents similar theological problems.
Next Tim reviewed Why Good People Do Bad Things by self-help guru Debbie Ford. He critiques it for many reasons, one of which is Ford's propensity to appeal to herself as highest possible authority.
The Soloist, by journalist Steve Lopez, is a human interest story about the friendship between Lopez and a homeless mental illness sufferer named Nathaniel Ayers, who happens to be a violin prodigy. It will be made into a movie this fall and will star Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. The book can be gritty - Tim attaches a language advisory to his review.
This week Tim returns to one of his favorite themes - how boys become men, and how they often fail to do so. Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax identifies five factors driving this growing male epidemic.
Also this week, Tim reviews Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, an autobiographical account of a Navy SEAL's adventure in Afghanistan, and his perspective on the the ways in which the US government and media fail its soldiers.
Finally, I (Mark Tubbs) have submitted two reviews of books that providentially go cheek-by-jowl. I wouldn't recommend you read Unbinding the Gospel, a book encouraging mainline churches to evangelize, without R.C. Sproul's little book Saved From What? at your elbow. In Unbinding the Gospel, author Martha Grace Reese asks the very important question, "From what are we saved?" just two pages from the end of the book, and leaves the answer dangling. Sproul, on the other hand, spends 123 pages providing a conclusive and biblical answer to Reese's question. Both Sproul's book and Reese's book excited and encouraged me for very different reasons.
Enough already - eleven books for you to read about, and at least nine of them worth a read through. We'll be back next week with a few more reviews.
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