Category: Books

Book recommendation — Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don’t Have to Do (Phillip Cary, Brazos 2010).

I don’t plan a full review of Cary’s book, but do recommend it for reading.

Cary’s aim is to explode some of the more prominent myths about being a Christian — the truisms or conventional wisdom that only tend to make us anxious, because they inherently fail. One caveat or word of caution I would offer is that Cary tends toward focusing solely on justification, almost to the exclusion of sanctification. For example, Cary says that the way to make a change in people’s lives is “not by telling them how to change their lives, but by telling them about Christ and how he has changed everything.” It is true that Christ has changed everything, but Cary treats the subject as if Scripture never says anything about obedience, fruits of conversion, holiness, and examining ourselves for the evidences of conversion. There are things that believers are called to do, and the reader should keep this in mind.

Here are some of the provocative subjects Cary takes up (I say “provocative” because of Cary’s own description of what he’s doing. He says that his book is a “stealth attempt to preach the gospel” against what he deems the “new evangelical theology.” Provocative, maybe, but not quite so stealthy):

Why you Don’t Have to “Let God Take Control” (Or, How Obedience is for Responsible Adults)

The vernacular version of the idea Cary addresses here is the popular church marquee slogan that says “Let Go and Let God.” Cary points out that this imperative is not truly workable, and actually is quite incomprehensible. Cary illustrates how this concept removes the whole category of Christian obedience from discipleship, as if God were doing the obeying for us.

[I also wonder how the “let go and let God” concept fits in to various soteriologies: can an Arminian, who is against God’s control in salvation, think we should let God control our sanctification?]

Why You Don’t Have to “Find God’s Will for Your Life” (Or, How Faith Seeks Wisdom)

Everyone wants to know God’s will…when seeking a wife or husband, when choosing a job, when picking lottery numbers (checking to see if you’re paying attention). Cary points out the uncomfortable fact that many times when people who profess belief in Christ wonder about God’s will in a particular matter or when facing a particular decision they know very little of God’s actual revealed will in the Scripture.

In addition to his argument that there is no single, individual, personal will of God for every decision we face, Cary argues that seeking the will of God by being adept students of Scripture would probably eliminate the angst we frequently face in decision-making.

Why “Applying It to Your Life” Is Boring (Or, How the Gospel is Beautiful)

Cary acknowledges that proper preaching includes help to see ourselves as those who “receive [Christ’s] commands and promises” but claims that “applying it to our lives” is the most boring part of the sermon. I disagree with Cary to the extent that application is at least an explained command. Without such explanation, it is difficult to imagine what Cary would preach other than to simply read the words of Scripture itself.

However, I do agree with Cary that application is twisted beyond recognition when it overtakes the entire sermon, and creates the idea that preaching consists of Seven Steps to This and Four Keys of That.

Cary addresses other matters (seven others, actually) and offers a corrective to some of the unbiblical notions of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Keeping in mind the caveat mentioned above, the reader should find much thought-provoking material here.

Review — The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood (William J Bennet, Thomas Nelson 2011).

In his previous books William Bennet has shown an amazing ability to gather materials from a variety of eras and sources, and in The Book of Man he does so again.

Bennet calls attention to the present plight of manhood, in which there is a dearth of examples about how being men relates to one’s work, faith, family and society. Bennet’s sampling of materials addresses this problem, and extols virtues of hard work, loyalty to country, friends and family, and the transmission of faith to one’s children.

Drawing from the writings of past U.S. presidents, literary classics, and religious sources, Bennet categories those ideas and applies them to being men in war, work, politics, family, and faith. Because Bennet’s religious examples cross Catholic and protestant sources, as well as non-Christian traditions, his outlook on manhood is quite ecumenical.

The Book of Man does not, therefore, provide any indication of which religious tradition Bennet believes is the right one, but only suggests that Bennet believes that being manly includes a spiritual element. Fathers wishing to use The Book of Man to support, for example, a Christian view of manhood, therefore, should select reading with measure of discretion and additional teaching.

There are odd quirks to some of Bennet’s profiles of current prominent men, such as commending an American Muslim for standing against radical adherents of his faith, while failing to mention at all the Christian faith of NFL quarterback Aaron Rogers.

An encyclopedic approach to the materials such as Bennet’s is not my personal favorite, but for simply the wealth and variety of sources, as well as the profiles of contemporary figures, The Book of Man is worth checking out.

Rating: 3/5.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through the Book Sneeze (BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com>) book review program. I was not required or encouraged to write a positive review; the thoughts expressed here are my own.

Recommendation — Questioning Evangelism: Engaging People’s Hearts the Way Jesus Did (Randy Newman, Kregel 2004).

Yes, you read it right. 2004.

I don’t get out much. My “to read” section in my office is three entire shelves of books. Oh, well.

Drawing on his experience as a campus minister with Campus Crusade for Christ, Randy Newman suggests here that many of our methods of engaging people with the truth of Christ — and where we have no real method, our natural tendency — can be counterproductive and not a little bit off-putting.

Instead, he asserts that we should use the methods of Jesus, a rabbinical device of answering questions with questions in order to lead the questioner to see his own biases and presumptions, to recognize ulterior motives in the question, and to arrive at the answer without being force-fed mere data.

Using inquiry in this way also forces the believer to actually listen to the question and for the motives behind the question.

Newman provides useful examples of dialogue for many of the categories he discusses. However, Newman’s material seems focused on the college environment, understandably, and it would be useful to know how he would address his ideas to the workplace, social situations, and so forth (after all, most of leave college…at some point).

Overall, Questioning Evangelism is a useful discussion of engaging non-Christians in sincere discussion. Worth reading.

Review — Erasing Hell: What God said about eternity, and the things we made up (Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle: David C Cook 2011).

This book by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle was released earlier in 2011, and was among several that responded to Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. As is usual for my particular book-review-niche-market, my reading and review come after the wave of interest and popularity has crested. For the stragglers out there, this is for you.

Chan and Sprinkle present a response of sorts to Bell’s thesis, although it is not completely directed solely at countering his book. They instead use Bell’s arguments by reference to frame their discussion of what Scripture truly says about the subject of hell and eternal punishment.

Erasing Hell is an impassioned plea not to consider the subject of hell purely from a philosophical standpoint, or from the view of detached, scholarly research into what Scripture says about it. Instead, we should recognize the sober reality of hell’s torments and do what we can to ensure that people don’t go there. When we consider the awful destiny that awaits those who reject Christ, Chan and Sprinkle argue, we should find great motivation to proclaim the gospel.

Balanced against this call to sober consideration of hell from the emotional perspective — and giving proper foundation for it — is the responsible and skilled handling of the Scriptural instruction on hell itself. In stark contrast to Bell’s biblical method, Chan and Sprinkle treat the Scriptural material rightly, giving proper deference to languages, context and original understanding to arrive at a conclusion about the Bible on hell: or more accurately, about God on hell.

Erasing Hell is fairly short and is very accessible, despite a thorough treatment of biblical material. It is worth reading.

Rating: 5/5

Review — Money, Possessions and Eternity (Randy Alcorn: Tyndale 2003)

If you don’t want to be challenged regarding your beliefs, attitudes and actions regarding a Christian’s use of money, don’t read this book.

This has been out for several years, but is nevertheless a thorough and biblical look at what Christian’s should think about money, and how we should think about money. Alcorn leaves virtually no subject untouched in his call for believers to approach wealth and possessions with a view to building up treasures in heaven, rather than on earth. And no one’s ox remains ungored as he calls on us to examine whether we truly trust God for our daily provision, or whether our blind acceptance of western wealth practices reveals that we really trust in Mammon.

Alcorn’s treatment of the subject tends toward lengthy, with several appendices as well, but one should remember that this is as thorough a treatment as you are likely to find.

Worth a read, but be sitting down when you do.

Rating: 5/5

I thought initially that it only applied to Mark Driscoll and his “scandalous” book, Real Marriage.

It seemed that everyone and his proverbial brother were hopping on the pummel-Mark bandwagon and offering critiques of his book, causing me to wonder how I — a normally fast reader — were woefully behind the blogosphere in reading, then reviewing, Driscoll’s book.

As it turns out, buried in the blogs and articles labelled “reviews” of Real Marriage was the whispered disclaimer, “I have not yet read the book, but…” The reviews were so fast in coming, as it were, because the reviewers skipped a crucial step: reading the book.

Occasionally what was not whispered in the dark was proclaimed from the housetops, and some actually took pride in the fact that they not only had they not read the book for which they offered scathing critique, they also boldly announced that they “would never read such a book”, obviously possessing a gift of the Spirit for sanctimony, private revelation and Solomonic wisdom, to boot.

But I find that such talents are not just applied in critique of whipping-boy pastors of the West Coast, but also to prominent, well-known pastors from the heartland. One well-known website offering ostensibly Christian critique of culture posted an article blasting John Piper’s book, Bloodlines: Race, Cross and the Christian (offered as a free download by Piper). The author admits in his article that he has not read the book. Yet he is comfortable saying things like:

Although I have not had the opportunity to read Bloodlines yet, if Mulder’s review is accurate, I have to agree with him that Piper’s solution ignores the reality of institutional racism.

“Piper’s solution” has not been explored by the author, but by someone else. Does anyone else see the obvious problems with this? The reviewer is disparaging Piper’s conclusion based upon what someone else has concluded about Piper’s conclusion.

This is madness.

There are certainly occasions when I read that someone’s book is forthcoming and I see the flurry of activity in reviews, articles and blogs about the book. That might reasonably prompt me to write something on the topic. And there are times when other bloggers and writers take up a topic in a way that spurs my own thoughts on the matter and prompts me to post them. But without having read book or blog, I dare not make statements to the world claiming how I know that they are wrong (or right, for that matter).

Yet this is precisely what happened ad nauseam to Driscoll, and what appears to be happening to Piper.

My plea to my Christian brothers is simply this: should you be tempted to offer your conclusions about what someone has said, read what he has said.