Book Reviews

My annual Christmas list always is filled with good reads for family and friends. Last year many received Nancy Guthrie’s anthology, Come Thou Long – Expected Jesus. I commend it again this year as a rich tool to help prepare your heart for the joyous celebration of the King of Kings.

For Christmas 2009 my youngest grand will receive:

Sammy and His Shepherd, Seeing Jesus in Psalm 23by Susan Hunt, a delightful choice. I look forward to reading this and showing him the beauty of our great shepherd.

Click here to buy.

For the older elementary grands, I have chosen The Prince’s Poison Cup by R. C. Sproul. This beautifully designed booktells the story of Jesus’ willingness to drink the cup of the Father’s wrath and helps children see the triumph of Christ that came from His obedience. This book is a helpful tool to parents and grandparents seeking to teach their children deep biblical truths.

Buy the book here.

The dear men in our family will be receiving three good reads:

My olderst grandson will be receiving the Ryken’s Bible Handbook. I give it with the prayer that the Holy Spirit will guide him in his understanding of the treasures and truths of God’s Word.

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On Being Presbyterian is a wonderful gift to the PCA family and lends itself to multiple teaching opportunities within the local church. The author, Dr. Sean Lucas, is former dean of faculty and assistant professor of church history at Covenant Theological Seminary, and currently senior pastor at First Presbyterian, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Buy the book here.

In 2009 Christendom celebrated the 500^th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. Through the reading of John Calvin’s Institutes we discover a preacher whose life and preaching evidenced a passion to show forth the glory of God. A Heart Promptly Offered: The Revolutionary Leadership of John Calvin by David Hall, shows “John Calvin was much more than a theologian, and his influence extended far beyond churches. He inspired the cultural changes that gave rise to the political philosophy of the American founders…”

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And no list of mine will be complete without my perennial favorite The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions! It is always appreciated and becomes a treasured gift.

Buy the book here.

Finally, if you need a good gift book for newly weds,singles, or a seasoned marriage, choose John Piper’s This Momentary Marriage, A Parable of Permanence.

The style is biblically centered as the author holds up a picture of marriage displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. “Our earthly marriage is really a momentary gift, a shadow that will give way to Reality….the foretaste will lead to the Banquet…and the purpose of marriage will be complete.”

Buy the book here.

I send this with a prayer that this Christmas will be a joyous celebration of worship for the Gift of Christ Jesus.

This is an unusual book but I believe a very important one to read and was so convinced of this, our staff took several weeks and worked our way through it. It is written by George Barna, researcher and writer, who has authoredmany booksread and used by many church leaders. This book should be no exception and should be read and study carefully, intentionally, and with the prayer that God will enable us to work with what we learn. This book took over eight years of research with more than 30,000 people. From that research Barna and associates determined that among the 200 to 250 religious groups in America which underscores multi-diversity, they can be distilled down to seven faith tribes based on their commonality. As Barna says so clearly, these seven tribes are impacting not only religion, but economy, politics, and values.

We realizethe United States is not very united in practice at this time butrather exhibitingmuch discord among our multicultural context. Is there any waywe can emphasize now as was once more successful in the American experiment early on, things that could unite us as a nation? Can there really be unity among all the diversity that surrounds us?

Barna is correct in concluding that at the beginning of the third millennium the United States is on a downward cycle. There is no area that appears to be stable; the economy, politics, religion, global relationships, even natural disasters. At the same time he says, churches are struggling to be relevant, traditional morality is being challenged and generally dismissed. Even professing Christians are not demonstrating the very beliefs and values they claim in following Jesus thus “losing ground for the cause of Christ as well as the good of humanity.” This could have a self-destructive impact on America. Christians have not always been the salt and light influence on our culture and world and have actually contributed to some of the division we experience. Therefore Barna makes what I call a plea. “In other words, we need to stop competing, comparing, complaining, and condemning and we must start cooperating, communicating, collaborating, and contributing. It’s time to stop fighting and start loving. It’s time to stop taking and start giving This is a critical moment in American history. Everything is changing,” (page xiii).

The first thing done in this book is condense the multitude of religions into seven major tribes. This was done by attempting to identity the valuesthe seven tribes would probably have in common. Things like: represent truth well, cultivating civility, belonging to a caring community, investing in young people, being a good citizen and so the list of 20 shared values goes. We need to develop a community where shared values emerge and are intentionally practiced.

The seven tribes identified in this research include with their percentage: Casual Christians who are lax in beliefs and practices but identify themselves as Christians, 66%; Captive Christians who are more consistently practicing their Christian beliefs, 17%; Jews are 2%; Mormons, 2%; Pantheists including Eastern Religions, less than 1%; Muslims far less than 1%; and Skeptics, including agnostics and atheists, 11%.

Barna comments that what America is experiencing now, though often subtle, is an abuse of religion instead of allowing our religion to encourage us to live more in harmony with one another, even of a different tribe and one need not sacrifice his religion in order to do that. One of the main ways we can do that is to understand one another’s world views. He says that might help us not to gossip, attack, isolate, and wall ourselves off from one another as well as attempting to build bridges towards those of different tribes. While some say that political leaders are the key to leading this approach, religion should actually be the energizing force moving us to such cooperation. He says, “our elected officials are not likely to instigate the rescue; it must come from our faith tribes.” He even identifies seven components that would move us closer to that goal of a truly United States of America.

I agree that this is an opportunity for Christians and Christian leaders to step up and lead in this task. To do this, the church would need to intentionally demonstrate a unity within the church that does not compromise truth but speaks the truth in love and builds healthy relationships and then in that process train and equip its members to move out into the world with that same intention. Christians may even have the responsibility to step up to the plate and take the leadership to this end. I agree that we must pour our lives into the lives our young people to disciple them towards these goals. “The nation has a leadership vacuum waiting to be filled.” To begin to fill that vacuum, Christians need to demonstrate courage, compassion, commitment to the truth and to one another.

I encourage you to read this book but only if you are willing to wrestle with the opportunity to be part of the cure and not the sickness.

In my debating with myself about reviewing this book by N. T. Wright, one of my staff members asked, why I was going to do it. From time to time it is important to mention a book that is important and influential even though I have to disagree with its content. Also because of the popularity of the author in some of our circles it is easy to read him in a non-critical way and be influenced by what he writes. This is not a book for a new Christian nor for those lacking a strong theological perspective. Because Equip to Disciple is intended primarily for pastors, staff, and other church leaders and because our PCA General Assembly has dealt with the general framework into which this book fits, namely “the New Perspectives on Paul” I decided to comment on it.

This is not an easy task because there are many good things that I have read and appreciated by the author even though Idisagree with him on a number of issues;justification being one. First, a word of background. Two years ago John Piper wrote a book The Future of Justification which was critical of Wright’s view of justification. Much was based on the book What Saint Paul Really Said, with which I was familiar.Though I have some appreciation for what Wright is saying, I had some problems with Piper’s critique of Wright for his covenantal emphasis on the topic. This book is intended to respond to Piper and clarify the issue of which Wright is critical of Piper’s critique.

Second, I think there is merit, from our Presbyterian and Reformed context, for a covenantal hermeneutic regarding interpreting Scripture, as long as it does not cause us to misinterpret Scripture. Lacking the covenantal focus, I believe, is a weakness of Piper’s dealing with justification, as I believe it was with Luther. One of the strength’s of Calvin’s theology in contrast to Luther’s was Calvin’s understanding the heart of the gospel, the good news, was the kingdom of God, of which salvation and its parts, including justification, were included. Luther focused primarily on soteriology but especially justification as though it were the heart of the gospel. Wright’s point which I believe has some validity is that Luther’s and consequently the other reformers reading of justification as an aspect of salvation that changed our relationship to God and failed to see the covenantal aspect of it. I believe we miss so much by simply focusing on the individual and his relation to God exclusively or almost so as though that reflects the good news of the kingdom.

Wright challenges Luther, Calvin, The Westminster Confession of Faith, The 39 Articles of his own church, and others such as D. A. Carson, and the late Edmund P. Clowney on this matter. He believes that the 16^th and 17^th century reformers have caused the western reformed and evangelical world to allow those reformers to interpret Paul for us; therefore, we have not actually understood what Paul said. For example, the WCF Shorter Catechism definition of justification is: (Q and A 33). “What is justification.” A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.” This view clearly reflects Paul’s teaching in Romans. The idea of imputation is foreign to what Paul says, according to Wright. It is not about our sins being imputed to Christ and his righteousness being imputed to us. That concept according to Wright came from those 16^th and 17^th century reformers.

What Paul has in mind both in Romans and Galatians is not the catechisms definition of justification. Instead, Wright defines justification as “God’s faithfulness to keep the covenant made with Abraham.” That is a good statement but it does not actually apply to the concept of justification. This has implications and application on Wright’s definition of the righteousness of God and the righteousness of man. What he says sounds good at first reading, that the reformers allowed their context to determine their interpretation. They should have gone back to the original context of Paul and using extra canonical sources such as the Second Temple documents to interpret Paul, as though they actually represent Paul’s context. In fact while there are good things we can learn from the STL, including the Mishna, they reflect the antithesis to Paul’s teaching about law, works, justification, and even sanctification. This has implications on our view of Scripture being the only infallible interpreter of Scripture and not some extra canonical documents which can be of some help in our understanding but not the determiner of Scriptures’ meaning.

Wright believes that Paul’s references to the law in Romans and Galatians are not references to the traditional understanding of the Judaizers and their emphasis of a legalistic moral works type scenario. For him the law of God from the Jews perspective was to attempt to nullify God’s covenant with Abraham to save both Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish use of the law erected a barrier between Jews and Gentiles that God’s work had torn down. That is not all wrong but it does not fit with Scripture at this point. To illustrate, Wright points to Anselm the Bishop of Canterbury by criticizing him for allowing the Latin concepts of things like “law” and “right” to determine his interpretation of Scripture rather than using the Hebraic thought forms. Again, some truth, but not here.

He uses another example of the reformers interpretation of 1 Corinthians 1:30 to point out how they constructed an ordo salutis (order of salvation) from this text which caused them to miss what Paul was really saying namely, the way in which the status of the believer in Christ overturns all social pride and convention of the surrounding culture. He says this has caused the church to reach for tradition vs. Scripture to hear Paul.

Basically for Wright, justification has more to do with God keeping his Word than man’s right standing with God and how justification influences that. “Many supposedly ordinary readings within Western Protestant traditions have simply not paid attention to what Paul actually wrote,” (page 50). Justification is really about God’s righteousness not ours and according to Wright that is what Romans and Galatians are referring to. In summary, Wright believes that justification is God’s faithfulness. His understanding includes God’s promise to Abraham to have one people and that is the context of Romans and Galatians. According to Wright being justified by the law, for the Jew, meant building a barrier between the Jew and Gentile. Thus he claims that in Galatians 2:20 Paul is speaking of being crucified with Christ and the life we now live in the flesh, we live by the faithfulness of God, not by our faith in the Son of God. This interpretation tends to diminish the result of justification on man’s part, as Wright translates it.

I believe this book illustrates a different view of Scripture and its interpretation, as though the Second Temple documents are trustworthy extra canonical sources in interpreting the Scriptures. I have a problem, as I read the book, with his view of the righteousness of God and righteousness of man. I am troubled by his definition of justification. Then, there is his definition of the law of God. I have trouble with his criticism of the reformers making justification merely a reference to God’s righteousness In doing this I believe he has constructed a straw man as I think he does in other places.

Piper says that he doesn’t believe Wright is preaching a false doctrine but rather a confusing one. That may be a very generous statement. It certainly is confusing and I believe a confusing gospel can easily lead to another gospel. Paul says unless there is a clear sound from the trumpet of God, who can prepare for battle? We need to speak with clarity and as little confusion as we can. I believe there is the possible danger, even as Wright points out. We can read, as I believe he does, our own definitions into a text or our own context to the extent that we can miss the message, but at the same time I believe to interpret Scripture, we need to consider three horizons to use Anthony Thiselton’s word: the original context, the whole of church councils and church history,and our context today.

Read this book, carefully, discerningly, and with much caution. Remember as you do, our final authority is the inspired Word of God in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

I agree with J. I. Packer. When I read Why We Love the Church, I wanted to stand up and cheer. I have been reading so many books and blogs from people who do not speak a love language regarding the church or organized religion. Granted, there are blemishes and spots and things that need correcting regarding the church but as the bride of Christ, whom he loves, we too must love the church, and you cannot separate the organism aspect of the church from the organized as many are trying to do. You may have already read an earlier book by these two authors, one a teaching elder and the other a ruling elder. That book, Why We’re Not Emergent, was a good book but this one tops it. Both are great reads but if you have to chose, this one is the winner.

They unwrap the idea that the North American church is suffering from a crisis in ecclesiology. They conclude the lack of love for the church is one of the reasons why there is a glaring lack of any ecclesiology, even among those who profess to be Christians, who talk much about community, and who throw stones at what they think the church is without understanding what they are doing. Beating up on the church is no way to treat the bride of Christ. As the authors point out, many who do talk about the church do so in a minimalist way that reflects no understanding
of what they are talking about. Again that doesn’t mean that the church is perfect or above evaluation and criticism but we need to know what we are doing, and proceed carefully, when we do speak critically of the church: after all it is the heart of God’s kingdom. The church should always look differently from the world because it is through the church that the world is supposed to see the kingdom of God. And, it isn’t about numbers.

One very revealing comment by the authors underscore the message, “Many of these passionate, well-intentioned youngish church leavers have a vision for the world that is so unlike anything promised this side of heaven that they can’t help but feel disappointed and angry with the church for not getting the world where they think it can go.”

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They caution about the danger of polling and trend watching which tends to cause us to forever be doomed to chase relevance, manage people’s perceptions of the church, and catch up on the cutting edge. By the way, they say this is generally done at the expense of not dealing with sin which causes the problems in the first place. With a good reminder they caution about reading people like George Barna when they either beat up on the church or bemoan its falling apart. which as they refer to Barna, always requires doing church differently or not doing church at all.

I read trends and think we can learn some things from them. I agree with DeYoung and Gluck that doing so too seriously can lead the church away from its mission under the guise of making it more effective. It uses the wrong standards to measure its effectiveness in ministry and mission. The days of the church are not over. We must not read the eulogy over that which will not perish. They say, “It is easy to blast the church for all its failures…but we could do better with using a little less complaining and a little more gratitude.” DeYoung and Gluck are in their “thirtysomethings” and are neither out of touch with their generation nor the others as well. They say that their generation is prone to radicalism without follow-through, not proving themselves to be faithful in much of anything including jobs, parenting, and real change. Do we in fact need more spirituality and less religion? More social justice or political correctness?

The authors remind us there is a place and need for change, at times more than others, however the problem is that we do not always know how to change things for the better and we end up complicating the problem and making things worse and then turning the blame from ourselves. “Is it possible our boredom and restlessness have less to do with the church and its doctrines and more to do with a growing coldness toward the love of God displayed in the sacrifice of his son for our sins?”

So what do we do? We realize as they emphasize that the gospel is not about what we need from God, but about what God has done for us. It is not dressed up moralism, gospel activism, and rest for the weary, nor as I would add to that a legalistic “work your way to heaven” message.

Their plea is not to give up on the church because the Bible knows nothing about a churchless Christianity. “Find a good local church, get involved, become a member, stay there for the long haul…Worship God in spirit and truth, be patent with your leaders, and rejoice when the gospel is faithfully proclaimed, bear with those who hurt you, and give people the benefit of the doubt.” They further remind us that the church is not an incidental part of God’s plan. I was thrilled to read this statement, “I still believe the church is the hope of the world-not because she gets it all right, but because she is a body with Christ for her Head.” I hope my brief comments on this book make you aware that I believe it is one of the most important books for church leaders and members to read today regarding the church. If the church doesn’t function and carry out its mission of making kingdom disciples, she will not serve God’s purpose to this generation and we cannot do that by turning our backs on that most central and essential institution and organization for making kingdom disciples.

As the lead article in this issue indicates there has been great confusion regarding the broad issue of God and politics, especially as it relates to the frequently heard church and state separation issue and the united states Constitutional position. on the one hand you have the secularists who want to exclude God from all public discourse, especially politics, and on the other hand you have some Christians who claim that America was founded on Christian principles; therefore, the church cannot be left out of the state or politics. Hunter Baker suggests both tend to over state their case.

Baker is clear that you cannot leave God out the political realm, which basically agrees with Calvin’s position that while the church and state have their separate realms–“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”– both are subject to God. Baker points out that Abraham Kuyper, the prime minister Calvinistic statesman, theologian, and politician, made an interesting point in debunking the idea of a secular and sacred dichotomy, that roman Catholicism was mainly responsible for promoting the idea of secularism. Baker does a good thing in showing that throughout history the question does the church control the state or king or does the state or king control the church has been debated. He points to Thomas Aquinas as the key figure in setting up the premise of a secular state.

Secularism, as used by the author, is simply an attempt to leave God out-the “ordering of a community without reference to God.” We have mentioned from time to time in Equip to Disciple how many of the founders and originators of the Constitutional standards were impacted by a Calvinistic theology and philosophy. In this case, as Baker points out, “To Calvin, the king held his power through the hand of God and it would be ridiculous for God not to care whether his chosen servant protected right worship and doctrine.” Growing out of that, the concept of church and state separation can actually be traced to John Calvin. A further concept set forth in this book is that it was the Christian influence among the founders that led to the adoption of the principle of religious pluralism in America. The state would not by coercion or any other means promote a single religion but would rather make a place where one could practice his religion with freedom. (Maybe that is why America has more religions and religious organization than any other country).

This is an important book. In fact having read other books by Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, George Marsden, Harry stout and others on American history, this book may be one of the most strategic. However, as Baker points out, the solution to deal with this chaos and conflict is first to understand the difference between church and state separation (see the lead article in this issue) and God and state separation or the separation of religion and politics. Also because God is who he says he is, the sovereign God and king of his kingdom, we need to understand that you cannot leave God and religion out of politics or any area of life. This was never intended by the u. s. Constitution. Keeping God out of the public square, including politics, was never the intention of the founders, as our history bears out. They knew too much theology than to believe that you could do that.

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The bottom line is that America is not a secular nation in that God can be left out. Impossible! America is a religious nation that allows for religious freedom to its citizens which means the right to talk about religion not only in the privacy of our lives, but in the public realm as well.

Baker has given us a book that should be read by every parent, teacher, church and state leader. His perspective is fair and balanced. As it is read, studied, and understood, it will serve a positive purpose in further informing and clarifying the understanding of Kingdom thinking, not a two kingdom concept as set forth by Luther, but a one kingdom concept with God over all things as Calvin, Kuyper, and others have maintained. Don’t bypass this book! There is so much good content, far beyond what this brief review allows.

Editor’s note: This month’s Equip Tip will break from the series on Learning Styles so it fits better with the book theme.

Nighttime will many times find my wife and me lying in bed reading. Cindy will alternate between novels, WIC books, and studies, plus other interesting works. I, on the other hand, enjoy curling up with a good systematic theology or a dictionary of some kind (no snide comment please!). There was one night recently when there was a real struggle. It was a thousand page hardback book that sat heavy on my chest. Harder still was the difficulty of holding it steady while trying to underline some sentences and highlighting others. I lay there wishing there was a better way.

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Thoughts kept running through my mind of how nice it would be to have the ability to make a thousand page book much thinner and lighter and more user friendly. The next day I found the same problem simply resting the book on my lap while sitting in my favorite chair. What is a reading man to do? What might the future bring to help with this problem?

In the distant future I see a “book” that will allow me to underline with straight lines that later doesn’t hinder my reading because the line blotted out the words. There will also be the ability to highlight entire paragraphs and be able to use as many different colors as desired, using each color to represent whatever I want it to emphasize. This new book will allow me to add my own notes, not only in the margins, but between lines that I can separate. It will also allow me to erase all my mistakes without putting holes in the page. Perhaps the best thing about this book of the future is that it will come with its own lighting, so I am not dependent on the kind of lighting in the room, nor the time of day. It will not even be affected by the sun if I choose to read while at the beach.

Oh, how i long for that future!
Needless to say, the future is here, but most of us are just too stubborn to take the future out for a test drive.
One of these future “books” is put out by Amazon – it is called the Kindle. It is small and very light. It holds hundreds of books without extra weight. It comes with what is called electronic paper and ink, making it readable in any light without the light glaring back at you (like a computer does) making you too tired to read. You can change the size of the font, and mark it up in more ways than I have yet to discover. However, I don’t recommend the Kindle only for the reason once you buy it you are a slave to buying everything from Amazon, and the price for me is still not justifiable.

There are other devises already out there, but again the price is not appealing – yet! I have pleaded with a number of Christian publishers to ban together to approach a company like Dell to get them to come up with a devise that will do all I want it to – and more. If they have done this, they have kept it a secret from me.

Having said all that, I still await the day when I can curl up with a thousand page book that will not crush my chest while lying in bed. I am almost 60 and willing to change to a new devise. Let’s face it, all of us will have to give up some of our future books. Why not grasp the future and learn to enjoy it? Until then I will enjoy my thousand page book at night – but it will be on my Kindle!