Elizabeth Saintsbury, George MacDonald: A Short Life

Edinburgh: Canongate Publishing, 1987, 152 pgs.

Summary: A non-academic biography of the writer George MacDonald (1824-1905). MacDonald was a Scottish fiction writer whose works of Christian fantasy influenced C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton. He appears as the protagonist’s guide to heaven in Lewis’ The Great Divorce.  

The book traces MacDonald’s major geographic movements from birth to death, theological developments, friends and sources of revenue. There is very little critical engagement with his theological progress, but Saintsbury does explore contemporary influences of friends, artists, and pastors. The most unique effort is to coordinate the geography of his fiction canon with many of the places he lived.

MacDonald grew up Presbyterian, attempted becoming a Congregationalist pastor, was rejected because he taught universalism and the immortality of individual animals (57-58), and subsided into a doctrinally irregular membership in the Church of England (101). He expected that non-believers would die and be purged of their sins to join believers in heaven and placed the personal revelation of conscience above Scripture.

We read of his view of the Scripture:

MacDonald did not accept a fundamentalist view of the Bible. It is not the word that is inspired, else he maintained, it would be better written. . . .George MacDonald valued the Scripture as giving an account of the life of Jesus, but it was his own conscience or Christ dwelling in him that was his chief guide in living (134). 

Detriments/Benefits:

Ms. Saintsbury draws a shallow MacDonald. One who liked to play dress up, neglected his children, and seems obsessed with the salvation of animals. Speaking of a horse he wrote, “That a thing can love and be loved is the same as saying it is immortal, whatever partakes of the essence of God cannot die” (135).

The accuracy of Saintsbury's portrait may also be reflected in her aside to the reader: “like typical Victorian parents seem to have had no idea of limiting the size of their family” (92).  She is most sympathetic when MacDonald meets her more modern ideals. 

This is my first biography of MacDonald and I suspect others will be more interesting and accurate; however, her general picture seems to agree with the known facts of MacDonald. 

Recommended for students of Lewis and MacDonald, but please be wary of Saintsbury’s lack of theological precision and prim modernism.

Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015, 272 pgs.

Summary: Evangelical apologist Os Guinness (1941-    ) has written a book laying out a framework of Christian apologetics as a form persuasive speech or rhetoric.

Dr. Guinness believes that it is particularly important that we recover the art of rhetoric in a way that both maintains biblical truth and yet establishes bridges and avenues of communication to those who reject Christianity, are ignorant of it, or are considering the claims of Christ.

The author positions himself within the school of faith seeking understanding (49) and seems to be a Anglicized Calvinist—“Deep down, the unbelieving heart is active, willful, deliberate, . . .” (93).

He defines apologetics as:

It is a form of pre-evangelism that precedes evangelism for those who are not open to God and the gospel. We must never distinguish apologetics and evangelism too neatly. But in broad terms, evangelism is the sharing of the good news, and it addresses the needs and desires of those who know they are in a bad situation. And broadly, apologetics is pre-evangelism in that it addresses those who do not realize they are in a bad situation, and therefore do not see the gospel as the good news that it is (110).

His central model for persuasive speech is that of the fool or the court jester. He draws this concept from Erasmus and the rhetorical patterns of Jesus and the prophets in the Bible. The basic idea is to use true rhetoric to reengage distracted or hostile minds to reconsider the claims of Christ through a willingness to appear foolish or humorous.

However, there are moral and practical limits to foolish talk: “Faith is never flippant and rarely frivolous, and it is as foolish to laugh all the time as it is to be serious all the time, but the truth still stands: The dynamics of the cross of Jesus are closer to those of comedy than tragedy” (77).

Guinness mentions that humor has three possible intentions: “a form of putdown,” “escapist humor” that “is a form of release that lets off steam emotionally,” and humor that is “hopeful, and it turn[s] on the grotesque mismatch between the bleakness of their immediate prospects and the brightness of their ultimate prospects” (71). The third form of humor is the most useful for apologetics.

Thus being an apologetic jester is to expose the grotesque nature of reality within non-Christian belief systems and the beauty and brightness that Christ has offered. Part of what this requires is assisting people to recognize transcendent moments in their lives and then to leverage these into conversations about the claims of Christ. The author’s discussion of this important point is covered in the chapter entitled “Triggering the Signals.”

The book also includes wholesome warnings about pride, the desire to win arguments, and so forth.

Detriments: The central model of the fool within Guinness’ explanation of persuasive speech is founded on a particularly charitable reading of Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly. Guinness concludes it was written with the wholesome purpose of maintaining a true and robust Christianity.

Guinness does mention that the philosopher Leo Strauss (1889-1973) disagrees with him and footnotes to a secondary source (63). He then goes on to suggest that anyone who disagrees with his reading of Erasmus is a “Poor man. Earnest, wooden and literalistic” (74). We could add to this list of “wooden and literalistic” folks the likes of Martin Luther and I would assume all of the Reformed scholastics. 

Guinness clearly believes that strident and consistent Roman Catholics are saved, and so perhaps this leads him to the tradition of in meliorem partem (the kindest reading); even so, his defense of Erasmus seems inadequate given Guinness’ academic background. The author’s reading is even odder, because it appears amidst a discussion of the historical necessity of esoteric writing (61-65) to avoid persecution.

Further, Guinness seems more interested in the rhetorical advantage of ideas and statements than a systematic understanding of authors, philosophy, or theology. His outcomes and suggestions are helpful, but he seems to arrive at them from practice rather than a critical understanding.

Benefits: It’s rather a nice rumble through how to do apologetics from a favorite English uncle with a dusty PhD. in philosophy from Oxford. It’s wholesome, thoughtful, helpful, but a bit loose academically and theologically.

While I disagree strongly with his reading of Erasmus, his analysis of prophetic rhetoric in the New and Old Testament make the same case with alacrity.

Fool’s Talk needs to be read as a repair manual rather than as the foundational physics of the internal combustion engine. Suggested reading for pastors and thoughtful layman interested in apologetics.

Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930

Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1970, 328 pgs. 

Summary: Ernest R. Sandeen (1931-1982) wrote careful and academic history of Fundamentalism tracing the resurgence and development of millenarianism, particularly the Dispensational variant, to the Fundamentalist movement in the United States. His theological perspective and assessment were mainline Protestant, but his facts and the tracing of historical trajectory are generally accurate. Sandeen grew up in a conservative/fundamentalist home and graduated from Wheaton and then University of Chicago. 

Sandeen saw three categories of Christians involved in the maintenance and continuance of the church: Fundamentalist who were also Dispensational millennialist, conservatives, and moderate liberals (269). The conservatives were represented by the likes of Machen and Westminster Seminary, portions of the Southern Baptist Convention (264), and one would assume the Missouri and Lutheran Synod. 

The founder of Dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) in creating and promoting a unique understanding of the church as wholly separate from Israel and functioning within an un-prophesied church age redefined the visible church, history, and to a great degree preaching. Further, Darby’s theological system tended to both explain and respond to the cultural changes caused by Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought and the Industrial Revolution; thus offered a ready solution to the confusion and upheaval of the era.

Dispensationalism was popularized in the United States by denominational figures like James Brookes, by a leavening of Plymouth Brethren converts including Darby, and by the evangelistic circuits and meetings established by Finney but maintained and expanded by Moody (178-181), and then Billy Sunday and Bob Jones. The doctrine had some academic defenders (142). 

The conservatives—those wed to historical theological systems—welcomed the adherents of Dispensationalism into the wider cultural contests of the day as cobelligerents against liberalism or modernism. Yet there was some degree of confusion and tension between the conservatives and the Fundamentalist in practice and intent. A quote from the conservative Francis L. Patton of Princeton Seminary illustrates the befuddled appreciation and critique in 1890: 

Then there is what is called a Bible-reading; very good to in its way, but a very poor substitute for a sermon. I suppose that the Bible-reading is a feature of the school of thought of which Mr. Moody is such a distinguished leader. With some of the theology of some of the members of this school I have no sympathy; and I particularly object to their arbitrary and unhistorical system of interpretation. But we cannot too much admire the earnestness of these men; their reverence for the Divine Word; their profound faith in the blood of Christ; and their working familiarity with the English Bible. But few, I fear, know the English Bible as they do. I advise you to learn their secret in this regard, but do not adopt their shibboleths; and I warn you against supposing that you have given an adequate substitute for a sermon when, with the help of Cruden’s Concordance, you have chased a word through the Bible, making a comment or two on the passages as you go along. (137) Quoted from Presbyterian and Reformed Review 1 (1890): 36-37. 

Sandeen then traces the development of Fundamentalist up into the 1930s when the fragmentation of the movement began and closes with these words:

Millenarian leadership in the twenties did not show the strength of character, deep grasp of and reverence for biblical truth, or intellectual acuity demonstrated by the late nineteenth-century leaders. The movement appears split and stricken, possibly because some of the men who became most popular could not direct their followers either as consistent conservatives or as moderate liberals (269). 

It should also be noted that Sandeen created a historical narrative that was picked up by other scholars wherein Princeton conservatives created a “new” defense of the inspiration of Scripture. 

Benefits/Detriments: The Roots of Fundamentalism is a helpful book as long as the perspective of the author is kept in mind. 

The author makes statements like “the inspiration of the ‘original autographs’” “is another example of the way in which Princeton doctrine of Scripture was refined” (127). Sandeen may not like this doctrine, but it’s simply orthodox Protestant doctrine since the Reformation. (Cf.  “The Princetonians and Biblical Authority: an Assessment of the Earnest Sandeen Proposal,” in Scripture and Truth, 251-279). 

Shoehorning all Fundamentalist into Dispensationalism doesn’t quite work; and odd sentences like “the old-line millenarians such as James H. Brookes had hoped would happen in their own day and exactly J. Gersham Machen, one of the leaders of the extreme conservatives in the denominations and professor at Princeton Seminary, had called for. . .” (253), prove this. 

Brookes (1830-1895) and Machen (1881-1937) were both Presbyterians, though separated by some years. Brookes was highly regarded by Hodge as a preacher and preached at and graduated from Princeton. Brookes was also the person most responsible for introducing and popularizing Dispensationalism in the United States. 

We also read of Machen:

Machen could be understood by other intellectuals. . . . but when he stepped out of his role as the intellectual into that of the denominational politician, he proved hopelessly inept. He had no notation of the essence of politics—compromise. What he called faithful, militant witnessing for the truth was often nothing more than perverse obstinacy and a fatal lack of openness to the truth that might (however dimly) glow in some other heart (257). 

Machen thought that if you got the gospel wrong you were going to hell and so he refused to compromise on the gospel or the doctrines necessary to maintain the gospel. Most folks would call these doctrines the fundamentals.  Machen also believed that a dimly glowing truth may save the one with the truth, but it cannot save others. The proclamation of the gospel requires clarity on the gospel.  

And while, I have no brief for Dispensationalism, the agreement that occurred among conservatives/fundamentalist and Dispensational fundamentalist/conservatives was about the gospel and the doctrines necessary to maintain the gospel. Dispensationalism’s pedigree in the United States was stolidly Presbyterian though it was forcibly rejected at Princeton. 

The Roots of Fundamentalism is interesting, well-written, factually accurate, but biased in assessment. Should be read along with In Pursuit of Purity by Beale and Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture. Non-Dispensationalists should not consider Sandeen the last word on the history of Dispensationalism in the United States. 

Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred

Yale University Press, 1997, 366 pgs.

Summary: A consideration of the psychological and political causes of paranoia within the public square. The book was written by Robert S. Robins, professor of political science, and Jerrold M. Post, M.D. “professor of psychiatry, political psychology, and international affairs.”

The book lists out seven elements of paranoia: extreme suspiciousness—“things are not what they seem to be” (8). Centrality—“the belief that the paranoid himself is the target of malevolent intent” (9). Grandiosity—“he knows the truth and conveys a sense of contempt for those so foolish as to differ” (10). Hostility—“generally hostile attitude toward the world” (10). Fear of loss of autonomy—“constantly wary of attempts by a superior force or by outside individuals to impose their will upon him, and he manifests an exaggerated independence” (11). Projection—“to presume that internal states or changes are due to external causes. . .the paranoid projector is concerned not with the observable obvious but with the hidden motives of others that are behind the observable. The projection is a compromise with reality. . .” (12). Delusional thinking—“false beliefs held in the presence of strong contradictory evidence” (12).

These individual characteristics are incorporated into the wider political arena: Simply put politics is the self-affirming, reinforcing mental and social landscape where paranoia plays best:

Paranoia, the most interpersonal of mental illnesses, is also the most political in the broad sense of centering on power relationships. Paranoids need their enemies, after all, and what richer source of enemies can be found than the world of politics (17)?

Religion, particularly monotheistic variants, are shown to be problematic in regard to paranoia:

This “edge is made even keener by the other characteristic of the People of the Book: their insistence that there is only one God—a jealous, watchful, personal God who permits no compromise with his will. . . Ardent practitioners of these faiths, committed to the literal word of god, are able to find ample justification in their texts for militant defense of their beliefs (143).

Faith—which requires the rejection of all earthly evidence contrary to belief—is as the center of this psychological system. Girded by faith, the spiritual belligerent is impervious to reason. Faith in its passive form requires rejecting or ignoring conflicting evidence. Faith in its active form requires defeating or destroying the proponents of conflicting evidence. Destruction of the challenger will not produce guilt; it will bring psychological comfort (144).

C. S. Lewis is found to describe “an aspect of Christianity—one that he believed in—that was paranoid” (170). Lewis was paranoid because he believed in the existence of Satan. There is then an obligatory attempt to relativize all forms of terrorism to commonality with Lewis’ Screwtape Letters and the hymn Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.

There are also a list of incredibly helpful case studies considering Pol Pot, the benighted Joseph McCarthy, Hitler, Lyndon LaRouche, Stalin, Idi Amin, David Duke, the John Birch Society, and so forth. The charismatic bond between people groups and their leaders is also discussed.

Benefits/Detriments: A book that can describe the behavior of both C. S. Lewis and Idi Amin as paranoid proves too much.  And the Lewis/Amin issue also exposes the underlying problem of the epistemology of the book; the authors of the book make no attempt to explain why they themselves are not political paranoids attacking “normal” people like poor tail-gunner Joe (McCarthy) and Malcolm X.

The working definition of faith as that “which requires the rejection of all earthly evidence contrary to belief” is a shockingly biased statement, because the definition of delusional thinking is “false beliefs held in the presence of strong contradictory evidence” then requires people of faith to be delusional.

It is also not clear to me that Adolf Hitler perpetrated a world war and the Holocaust because of an “‘identity crisis’. . . when [he] was rejected at the art academy” (279) or that Idi Amin’s persecution of academics was caused “by the wish to eliminate these psychological threats”—“the painful reminder to Amin of his own [intellectual] inadequacies” (262).

Having said this, there is a common sense and observational truth to much of the book that should be helpful for pastors. Pastors need to be wary of the rhetorical habits listed in subheadings like “Paranoid Director of Hatred” (281), “The Paranoid as Teacher” (295), “The Paranoid as Charismatic Moral Leader” (296). The book will also be helpful in assisting pastors in counseling.

Recommended for pastors and folks who are not obeying Isaiah 8:12. 

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Riverhead Books, New York: New York, 2008, pgs. 310.

The Reason for God is an urbane and winsome defense of orthodox Christian belief by Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Manhattan. The church has “six thousand regular attendees at five services, a host of daughter churches, and is planting churches in large cities throughout the world” (quoted from the back cover).

Keller’s very laudable goal is to limit unnecessary stumbling blocks to the gospel. And this is a wholesome and godly goal shared by every responsible Christian in the world. We don’t want people to reject Christianity because they don’t understand it or have been misinformed about what following Christ is.

C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga provide the philosophical backbone of the apologetics within the book. Keller also mentions the importance of Jonathan Edwards (253) in his theological development. (I must admit, I don’t see much Edwards here.)

We are given his overall strategy in several places, but here’s a representative quote:

I have one more bit of advice to people struggling with some of the Bible’s teaching. We should make sure we distinguish between the major themes and message of the Bible and its less primary teachings. The Bible talks about the person and work of Christ and also about how widows should be regarded in the church. The first of these subjects is more foundational. Without it the secondary teachings don’t make sense. We should therefore consider the Bible’s teaching in their proper order.

Let’s take a hot issue today as a good example. If you say, “I can’t accept what the Bible says about gender roles,” you must keep in mind that Christians themselves differ over what some texts mean, as they do about many, many other things. However, they all confess the words of the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. Don’t worry about gender roles until you figure out what you think about the central teachings of the faith (116-117).

In pursuing this overall goal, Keller’s book is very helpful and I believe serves as a good model for other Christians. Jesus Christ crucified should be the stumbling block.

Keller however adds a second rhetorical layer to this strategy which is to present Christianity as palatable as possible.

Thus he also points out that cool people like Bono of U2 (239-240) and Albert Camus (31) say true things about Jesus being God. And he focuses on artistically-inclined and professed Christians who seem to resonate with moderns—C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Simone Weil, J. R. R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, Anne Rice, and Flannery O’Connor. They all say beautiful and true things in defense of aspects of Christianity. Many of the cited theologians—N. T. Wright, Soren Kierkegaard, Richard Bauckham, and Dietrich Bonhoffer—are similar. The theological orthodoxy and coherence of these folks is rather mixed to say the least and is not mentioned.

The strategy of a palatable Christianity has two basic weakness. The first is the stumbling block of the gospel is softened by creating statements that contradict what Keller claims to believe (the Bible as understood through the Westminster standards).

Following Kierkegaard, sin is defined as, “the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from him” (168). The Bible is bit more angular. Sin is hating God (Rom. 1:30). It is loving death (Prov. 8:36).

As far as I can tell there is no “despairing refusal” in the biblical description of sin. Despair is a lack of hope. And sin is the hope and intent that God will allow you to not find your identify in him by behaving as if you are God. God sends us to hell, because there can be only one God in heaven.

The doctrine of the atonement is eroded as well: “God did not, then, inflict pain on someone else, but rather on the Cross absorbed the pain, violence, and evil of the world into himself. Therefore the God of the Bible is not like the primitive deities who demanded our blood for their wrath to be appeased. Rather, this is a God who becomes human and offers his own lifeblood in order to honor moral justice and merciful love so that someday he can destroy all evil without destroying us” (200).

The problem is that God is such a “primitive” deity that he does demand our blood for our sin (Gen. 9:4-6; Rev. 14:18-20). And his wrath is so unappeasable that the suffering in hell is eternal. God’s appeasement is found in either the eternal suffering of the individual sinner or in the infinite suffering of the Son. The Bible is very clear that God is a deity that requires unbeliever’s blood for his wrath to be appeased.

And this draws us to the second issue: self-contradictory statements.

Allow me to lay out a series of internally inconsistent statements:

“I think Genesis 1 has the earmarks of poetry and is therefore a ‘song’ about the wonder and meaning of God’s creation” (97).

“The skeptical inquirer does not need to accept any one of these [Christian views of the integration of modern science and Genesis 1 and 2] in order to embrace the Christian faith. Rather, he or she should concentrate on and weigh the central claims of Christianity. Only after drawing conclusions about the person of Christ, the resurrection, and the central tenants of the Christian message should one think through the various options with regard to creation and evolution” (97).

“For the record I think God guided some kind of process of natural selection, and yet I reject the concept of evolution as All-encompassing Theory” . . . . “If evolution is . . . elevated to the status of a world-view of the way things are, there is direct conflict with biblical faith” (98, italics in the original).

“[In 1 Corinthians 15:3-6] Paul not only speaks of the empty tomb and resurrection on the ‘third day’ (showing he is talking of a historical event, not a symbol or metaphor) but he also lists eyewitnesses” (212).

In this list of statements, Keller tells us that Genesis 1 which lists eyewitnesses (Adam and Eve) to some of the events and speaks of days including “the third day” (v. 13) is poetry and “a symbol and metaphor.” But Paul’s description of the resurrection which lists eyewitnesses to some of the events and speaks of the “third day” is historical and “not a symbol or metaphor.” So the “third day” and eyewitnesses is evidence of symbolism and is not symbolism at the same time.

He also tells us that the “skeptical inquirer does not need to accept any one of these” Christian positions and then informs us that if evolution is “elevated to the status of a world-view” then one can’t have biblical faith. So there both is and is not an acceptable position on evolution allowing “biblical faith.”

Keller can’t have it both ways. He can’t make Christ work on the cross legal but hell relational. He can’t make sin relational, but Christ’s death on the cross justice. Keller can’t promise non-Christians that there is no “One True Christian Position on Evolution” (97) and then on the next page argue that if evolution is your worldview you can’t have “biblical faith” (98). The historical legitimacy of Paul’s statement on the resurrection stands or falls on the historical legitimacy of Genesis 1.

All of these missteps by Keller make Christianity appear more attractive to moderns, but they also create contradictions. If we try to make a coherent system out of sin as “the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God” or the atonement as God “on the Cross absorbed the pain, violence, and evil of the world into him,” we would get heterodox mush.

Further, Keller is unintentionally creating a bait and switch. Christianity has been made so acceptable that seekers are not given an opportunity “to count the cost” of following Jesus.

The Reason for God is helpful in thinking through how to present the gospel to a sophisticated urbane audience. Yet it also provides the negative example of softening the gospel and limiting the offense of God’s word.

Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification

Lafayette, Sovereign Grace Publisher, Inc, 2001, pg. 136.

Summary: Walter Marshall (1628-1679) was a little-known Puritan/Congregationalist writer who struggled to have a sense security in his salvation because of the prevailing articulation of the gospel by the Roman Catholics, Quakers, the Anglicans, and his fellow Puritans. In attempting to halt the rise of antinomianism and social discord many Christians had begun to preach moralism. Ultimately, Marshall concluded that a religion of moralism is the default setting of the flesh:

The most of men, that have any sense of religion, are prone to imagine, that the sure way to establish the practice of holiness and righteousness, is to make it the procuring condition of the favor of God, and all happiness. This may appear by the various false religions that have prevailed most in the world. In this way the Heathens were brought to their best devotion and morality, by the knowledge of the judgment of God, that those that violate of the great duties to God and their neighbor, are worthy of death; and by their consciences accusing or excusing them, according to the practice of them (Rom. 1:32; 2:14, 15). . . .Yet, because our own consciences testify, that we often fail in the performance of these duties, we are inclined by self-love to persuade ourselves, that our sincere endeavors to do the best that we can, shall be sufficient to procure the favor of God and pardon for all our failings. . . .it is very difficult to persuade men out of a way that they are naturally addicted to, and that has forestalled and captivated their judgments, and is bred in their bone, and therefore cannot easily be gotten out of the flesh (Dir. 6, 1st para., pg. 40).

Moralism in its Christian guise holds that “a person’s repentance and sincere obedience to Christ contributed to personal justification” (cf. C. Fitzsimons Allison, The Rise of Moralism, quoted from the description of 2003 edition). The religion or moralism according to Marshall and the Bible is “bred in [our] bone.” And it exists in formal theology and informal practice and habits of mind.

Further, he argues that “men’s mistaking the true way of sanctification, is the cause of perverting the scripture in other points of faith, and of declining from the truth to Popish, Socinian, and Armenian tenets; because men cannot seriously take that for truth, which they judge not to be according to godliness” (121). Almost all errors of theology are traced to this root.

The principle work of God which our Lord informs us is—“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29).

Faith is the victory in salvation and sanctification.

Benefits/Detriments: A sweet balm and succor to my soul. It’s fairly scholastic, but I would rank it with Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, Owen’s Communion with God, and Lewis’s The Great Divorce. I don’t know of anything better on sanctification from a technical standpoint. Take and read.

Exemplar quotes.

“And, no doubt, Christ is thus united to many infants, who have the spirit of faith, and yet cannot act faith, because they are not come to the use of their understanding; but those of riper years, that are joined passively to Christ by the spirit of faith, will also join themselves with Him actively, by the act of faith, and, until they act this faith, they cannot know or enjoy their union with Christ, and the comfort of it, or make use of it, in acting any other duties of holiness acceptably in this life” (34).

“Even those that in a new state in Christ, and do serve the law of God with their mind, do yet with their flesh serve the law of sin (Rom. 7:25). As far as remains it remains in them, it lusts against the Spirit (Gal. 5:17); and it remains dead, because of the sin, even when the Spirit is life to them, because of righteousness (Rom. 8:10); and must be wholly abolished by death, before we can be perfected in that holiness and happiness that is by faith in Christ” (37).

“Repentance is indeed a duty which sinners owe naturally to God; but the great question, How shall sinners be able to perform it? This question is resolved only by the gospel of Christ, Repent and believe. The way to repent is to begin with believing” (54).

“The way to get rid of your raging lusts, is by faith, that purifies the heart, and works by love (Acts 15:9; Gal. 5:6). The soul must be brought to take pleasure in God and Christ by faith, or else it will lust after fleshly and worldly pleasures. And the more you strive against lusts without faith, the more they are stirred up; through you prevails so far as to restrain the fulfilling of them. Beg a holy fear of God, with fear of coming short of the promised rest through unbelief (Heb. 4:1)” (56).

“To help you hear, I have given you before, in this treatise, a description of saving faith; and have shown that it contains two acts in it; the one is,believing the truth of the gospel; the other is, believing on Christ as revealed, and freely promised to us in the gospel, for all his salvation. Now, your great endeavor must be, to perform both these acts; as I shall show concerning each of them in particular. . . .There is some false imagination or other in them contrary to the belief of the truth of the gospel; which is a stronghold of sin and Satan, that must be pulled down, before they can receive Christ into their hearts by believing in on Him” (81).

“If a prophet, or an angel from heaven were sent of God, on purpose to declare, that the sentence of everlasting damnation is declared against you; it would be your duty to believe, that God sent him to give you a timely warning, for this very end, that you might believe, and turn to God by faith and repentance. . . .Jonah preached nothing but certain destruction to Nineveh, to be executed upon them in forty days (chap. 3:4); yet the intent of that terrible message was, that those heathenish people might escape destruction by repentance” (84).

“If the swimmer will not commit his body wholly to the water to bear him up, but catch at weeds, or struggle to feel out the ground, may sink to the bottom. Christ will be our salvation, or nothing. If we seek to be saved any other way, as the Galatians did, by circumcision, Christ will profit us nothing(Gal. 5:2)” (85-86).

“Our way to mortify sinful affections and lusts, must be, not by purging them out of the flesh, but by putting of the flesh itself, and getting above into Christ by faith, and walk in that new nature that is by him. Thus, ‘the way of life is above the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath” (Prov. 15:24). Our willing, resolving, and endeavoring, must be, to do the best, not that lies in ourselves, or in our own power, but that Christ, and the power of His Spirit, shall be pleased to work in us: for, in us (that is, in our flesh) there dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18)” (96).

Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation: How God’s Word Brings Light, Freedom and Action to His People

Moody Press, 2011, 197 pgs.

Summary: An encouraging word about the sufficiency and efficacy of God’s Word in the local church. Accessible, biblical, bold, transparent, and thoughtful.

Exemplar Quotes:

Let me sum up all of this in four points: God created Adam, you, and me to image Himself. To image God, we must listen to God. God’s people, by definition, are those who listen . . .(John 10:2, 25-26). God’s Word, therefore, divides. It divides the Christian from the non-Christian. It divides the Christian in half, separating the “old man” and the “new man” (35).

In the last chapter, we saw that the Word sets us free as individuals. The electric current of the Word and Spirit enters through our ears, jolts our hearts to a pulse, and bursts the iron shackles of sin. The Word saves us. Yet its work does doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t leave us as detached individuals. Rather, the Word gathers the church. Or, to say it the other way around, the church on earth is the fruit of the Word, just like a plant is the fruit of a seed that’s been sown (Mark 4:14). (95)

Our prayers reveal what our hearts want (166).

Discipleship in a church: Frist, discipleship works through affections, instruction, and imitations (182). Second, discipleship affirms differences. Third, discipleship is church-wide (183).

Detriments/Benefits: Incredibly edifying. Would make an excellent undergraduate textbook. Especially good for fortifying a pastor’s resolve to stick to Scripture. Recommended for all.

Hercules Collins, An Orthodox Catechism: Being the Sum of Christian Religion, Contained in the Law and Gospel

Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2014, 120 pgs.

Summary: Hercules Collins (1646/7-1702) a godly Baptist pastor in London took the venerable Heidelberg Catechism (1562) and brought it into line with The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689. His purpose was to provide the Calvinistic Baptist of England a catechism reflecting the orthodox Reformed tradition of the continent. He was especially concerned to prove that Baptists were Trinitarian and mainstream Reformed with the exception of their understanding of believers baptism and church and state issues.

The catechism has been modernized by Michael A. G. Haykin and G. Stephen Weaver, Jr.

Exemplar quote: Q. 1. What is your only comfort in life and death?

A. That both soul and body, whether I live or die, I am not my own, but belong wholly unto my most faithful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. By His most precious blood fully satisfying for all my sins, He has delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me, that without the will of my heavenly Father not so much as a hair may fall from my head. Yes, all things must serve for my safety and by His Spirit, also He assures me of everlasting life, and makes me ready and prepared, that from now on I may live to Him (pg. 41).

Detriments/Benefits: It contains a pithy and succinct defense of believers’ baptism which looks suspiciously like Fred Malone’s argument for the same. (Not that Malone would deny this.) Collins’ continental orthodoxy did not include jettisoning the Sabbatarianism of Westminster and Perkins.

In general the book is irenic, godly, doctrinal sound, and helpful. It might be a bit burdensome to memorize, but would lead to wholesome results.

Adam Nicolson, God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible

2003, HarperCollins, 281 pgs.

Summary: A non-academic history of the King James Version of the Bible which attempts to describe the religious, cultural, and philosophical ambiance behind the translation. The personalities of the main translators and historical actors are also described with an almost bipolar sympathy or causticness.

Exemplar Quotes:

The deep décolletage of Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset, is a mark not of her own degeneracy but of a Jacobean court fashion in an age which valued lusciousness (description of a photo 172-173).

Shakespeare’s great tragedies and the King James Bible are each other’s mirror-twin. Both emerge from the ambitions and terrors of the Jacobean world. They are, from their radically diverging cores, the great what-ifs of the age. King Lear pursues the implications of a singular and disastrous decision to divide a kingdom; the King James Bible embraces the full breadth of absorbed and inherited wisdom in order to unite one; Lear contemplates, more fearlessly than any text had ever done or has ever done, the falling away of meaning; the King James Bible enshrines what is understands as the guarantee of all meaning; the rhetoric of King Lear breaks and shivers into multi-faceted shards of songs, madness, grandeur, argument, pathos; the King James Bible masks its immensely various sources under one certain, all-over musical sonority; everything in Lear falls apart, everything in the King James Bible pulls together; one is a nightmare of dissolution, the other a dream of wholeness (239-240).

Benefits/Detriments:

Mr. Nicolson tells us, “I am no atheist but I am no churchgoer. . .” (241). We also discover that he’s an aesthetic. His appreciation of Christianity and the King James Bible circles around his tastes and sensibilities. He has little interest in the meaning of the text or the faith’s ability to draw anyone to God. There is some interest in shared existential experiences through time. He is intelligent and shows great skill at providing interesting descriptions through historical research.

The book includes vulgar-contemporary poems about one of the translator’s wives and alludes to King James’ bisexuality and court debauchery with terms like “gauche sexuality” and the like.

There is very little of devotional value here for Christians and some academic merit. It does lay to rest the possibility of the King James Bible falling from heaven as the normative translation for English speakers.

Acceptable for adults, but not recommended to anyone except as a part of a much wider reading on the development of the King James translation.

David Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too

Reformation Heritage Books, 2010, 112 pgs.

Summary: David P. Murray, former pastor and current professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary gives biblical, practical, balanced and pastoral insights on a subject that has often failed to receive such treatment.  Dr. Murray writes as one who has seen depression first-hand in friends and those whom he loves most in this world and as one who pastored twelve years in areas in the northwest of Scotland that have some of the highest rates of depression in the world.  This immensely practical book is divided into six chapters:  The Crisis, The Complexity, The Condition, The Causes, The Cures, and The Caregivers, with an appendix on the Sufficiency of Scripture.

“The Crisis” gives eight reasons why it is important for Christians to study depression.

“The Complexity” gives two helpful “avoid-seek” principles for interacting with depression:  Avoid dogmatism and seek humility and avoid extremes and seek balance.  The dogmatism and extremes Murray advises against are assuming that the causes of depression are all physical, all spiritual, or all mental.  It is here that he offers an evaluation of the Nouthetic Counseling Movement (as represented by Jay Adams) and the Modern Biblical Counseling Movement (as represented by CCEF).

“The Condition” seeks to answer the question, “What is depression?” by considering five areas: Life situation, thoughts, feelings, bodies, and behavior.  “The Causes” of depression are considered under five headings:  Stress (brought on by life events or lifestyle), psychology (the way we think), sin, sickness, and sovereignty (“Hard though it may be to accept, the ultimate cause may be, ‘It pleased God.’” [p. 66]).

“The Cure” for depression is considered through the correction of the four areas of lifestyle, false thoughts, brain chemistry, and spiritual life.

“The Caregivers” are advised to study depression to avoid making common mistakes, to be sympathetic, to offer support by talking, listening, or praying, to reduce the stigma associated with being depressed, to maintain confidences, and to encourage the depressed person by reminding him or her of their usefulness and God-given ability.  Also in this chapter, Dr. Murray offers the general rule “to listen much and speak little” (p. 98) followed by a list of what not to say.  In addition, the reader is reminded “that there are no easy answers and there are no quick fixes in dealing with depression” (p. 100).

Dr. Murray handles the issue of the sufficiency of Scripture in the appendix by arguing that though the Scriptures are a sufficient guide in all of life, the Bible does not tell us everything we need to know about all aspects of life.  The subtitle of the appendix is “‘Salvation, Sanctification, and Spectacles’ because the truth regarding salvation is expressly set down in Scripture; the truth regarding sanctification is expressly set down or may be deduced from Scripture; and knowledge in this world must be checked by Scripture or read through the lens of Scripture” (p. 109).

Benefits/Detriments: An easy-to-read, very helpful contribution to developing a Christian understanding of a difficult topic, bringing a biblical and historical perspective for the assistance of the church today.  On the church bookstall.