Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ category

The Disappearance of God: Book Review

June 15th, 2009

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“More faulty information about God swirls around us today than ever before. No wonder so many followers of Christ are unsure of what they really believe in the face of the new spiritual openness attempting to alter unchanging truth.

For centuries the church has taught and guarded the core Christian beliefs that make up the essential foundations of the faith. But in our postmodern age, sloppy teaching and outright lies create rampant confusion, and many Christians are free-falling for “feel-good” theology.

We need to know the truth to save ourselves from errors that will derail our faith.” So says the back cover of  The Disappearance of God: Dangerous Beliefs in the New Spiritual Openness.

As biblical scholar, author, blogger, and president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Albert Mohler writes to answer weighty questions including:

  • Is God changing His mind about sin?
  • Why is hell off limits for many pastors?
  • What’s good or bad about the “dangerous” emergent movement?
  • Have Christians stopped seeing God as God?
  • Could the role of beauty be critical to our theology?
  • Is liberal faith any less destructive than atheism?
  • Are churches pandering to their members to survive?

Perhaps you have asked yourself some or all of these questions. If not maybe you should be asking these questions.

This little book was a concise, helpful overview of some of the issues facing the Evangelical church in the 21st century. Dr. Mohler applies his theological acumen to practical issues facing church leaders and American Christians.

Mohler is unafraid to challenge the status quo and voices his concerns about the state of the American church. His critique is straightforward  and incisive yet with a hopeful and redemptive tone. It is a call to “wake up!”

I enjoyed the book as a whole, but was particularly challenged by the chapters addressing “church discipline”. While my church does practice church discipline Mohler helped me to understand it’s importance much more than I had before.

According to Mohler discipline should be both “regulative” and “restorative“. He notes 19th century Baptists for having regular “days of discipline” when the “congregation would gather to heal breaches of fellowship, admonish wayward members, rebuke the obstinate, and, if necessary, excommunicate those who resisted discipline.”

Quoting one 19th century writer Mohler writes, “It has been remarked that when discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it.” This is a subject that we 21st century Christians could greatly benefit from wrestling with in our age of moral individualism.

The Disappearance of God is written at a popular level and should be easily accessible and helpful to anyone concerned about the health of the American church.

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Keller’s New Book: Counterfeit Gods

May 25th, 2009

counterfeit-godsIf you have been around me much recently you have probably heard me rave about a book called The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith by Pastor Tim Keller. If you haven’t read it – read it! In just over a hundred pages it gave me a much deeper understanding of the heart of God and His prodigal (wastefully or recklessly extravagant) love for both religious types and free-spirited types of people. (The book expounds the Parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15.)

If you are like me and want to read anything that Keller writes there is good news! Keller has another book coming out later this year called Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex and Power and the Only Hope that Matters. You can pre-order it on Amazon. 

You can also find many audio interviews, and conference messages by Pastor Keller free online. The Monergism website has links to many of them here.

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On Passivity and True Humility

May 10th, 2009

51ugjjtao9l_sl160_Just finished reading Humility: True Greatness by C.J. Mahaney. It is a short, but excellent book. It’s packed with good content and written in a simple conversational tone. Listen to what he writes on the topic of beginning your day acknowledging your need for God (an exercise in humility):

I’ve learned to make statements to God about my dependence upon God, and in this way I’m humbling myself before God.

This is a simply a strategy for taking control of the thoughts we allow in our mind. In his excellent book Spiritual Depression, Martyn Lloyd-Jones asked, “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” That’s profound, and it’s true.

Take a moment to review and examine your pattern of thinking from yesterday. Did you spend more time speaking truth to yourself, or was most of your time spent listening to yourself? Most of us spend more time listening to lies than we do speaking truth to ourselves. And the listening process usually starts as soon as we get up. The alarm has rudely interrupted the gift of sleep, and the listening begins. As we stumble through our morning routine, we’re not directing the thoughts in our mind – we’re simply at their mercy. We entertain complaints about what happened yesterday or worries about what’s coming today. We look in the bathroom miror and assess the damage, then brood over how we feel we’re not in charge of our thinking. We’re just there.

But instead, you can declare war on pride by speaking the truth to yourself and set the right tone for your day by mentally affirming your dependence upon God and your need for Him. (p. 69-70)

Too many think of humility as equivalent to passivity. It isn’t. Humility means submitting to God and his clear purpose and will. Frequently this means exerting great force of thought or action.

It’s far too easy to just “go with the flow” in thought, and consequently in speech and action. Imagine what we would be like if we were more deliberate to humble ourselves under the word of God, and intentionally conformed our thoughts and attitudes to align with Biblical truth. The church would look much different. The world would be changed.

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