Book Review - "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan (05/02/08 - 16 Comments)
There are many voices critiquing the North American church today. The voices come from both within and without; from those who love the church and those who hate it. We all know that there is something wrong. But what? In many cases the prescription is the same while the cure varies widely. In his new book Crazy Love, first-time author Francis Chan, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California, regular speaker at Passion conferences...
Book Review - Gum, Geckos and God (04/28/08 - 5 Comments)
I don’t think it takes very many years of child raising before every parent realizes that he is in over his head. I am no stranger to this feeling. As I was walking my eight-year-old son to school just last week he turned to me and said, “Dad, why is it that people think killing one another will solve the world’s problems?” My first instinct was that it would be a simple question to answer....
Book Review - "Do Hard Things" by Alex & Brett Harris (04/25/08 - 11 Comments)
I’ve often reflected on an experience I had when I was studying in college. With a busy semester ahead of me, I decided to take “Death and Dying,” an elective that had the reputation of being an exceptionally easy course (a “bird course” we called it back then). On the first day we arrived in the lecture hall, the professor handed out a reading list and what he assured us were the lecture notes for...
Book Review - The Courage To Be Protestant (04/22/08 - 17 Comments)
My interest in reading good books came a little bit too late to read David Wells’ four part series of books as they were released (No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, Losing Our Virtue and Above All Earthly Pow’rs). I now have the four volumes sitting on my bookshelf and have often thumbed through them wishing I could muster up the motivation to dive into the series. The problem is that I am...
Book Review - "Mormonism Explained" (04/12/08 - 14 Comments)
Mormonism seems to be on the rise. I read recently that some estimates suggest that by the end of this century there may be close to 300 million Mormons in the world. With the Mormon obsession with proselytizing and with their skill at winning converts, it seems a given that we will hear more and more in years to come about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Once considered little more than...
Book Review - "Still Growing" by Kirk Cameron (04/05/08 - 8 Comments)
I missed out on the Growing Pains phenomenon. Because my family had no television while I was growing up, the Seaver family largely passed me by. I caught occasional glimpses of the program but little more than that. It was only recently that I learned the show had propelled Leonardo DiCaprio’s illustrious career. The truth is I know more about Cameron’s post-sitcom career than the years he spent as Mike Seaver, one of television’s best...
Book Review - "Instructing a Child's Heart" by Tedd Tripp (04/01/08 - 7 Comments)
Instructing a Child’s Heart has been a long time coming. It was thirteen years ago that its predecessor, Shepherding a Child’s Heart, was published. It was thirteen years ago that Tedd Tripp published his last book. It was no lost on me that many of the book’s lessons and anecdotes now focus on the author’s grandchildren. Thirteen years is a long time by any measure! Instructing a Child’s Heart is a book that focuses on...
Book Review - Young, Restless, Reformed (03/31/08 - 13 Comments)
Though it is the emerging church that seems to have received so much attention in the past few years, just under the radar there has also been a quiet and steady growth of interest in far more traditional Reformed theology. All across North America (and perhaps beyond) Christians, and young Christians in particular, have been rediscovering the church’s historic theology. These disparate movements seem to have grown from a common source—a reaction against the kind...
Book Review - Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) (03/26/08 - 11 Comments)
“What is this emerging church I keep hearing about?” If I had a dime for every time I have been asked that question or one like it, well, I’d be several dollars richer at least. Emerging is one of the buzzwords in the church these days and one that begs for greater explanation. Unfortunately it is not an easy term to define. To borrow a tired cliche, defining the emerging church is much like trying...
Book Review - "Walking with God" by John Eldredge (03/25/08 - 76 Comments)
If you have been in a Christian bookstore in the past six or seven years, you are undoubtedly family with John Eldredge. Beginning with The Sacred Romance (co-authored with the late Brent Curtis) and continuing with Wild at Heart, Captivating, The Way of the Wild Heart, and others, his books have been constant features on the Christian bestseller lists. His latest effort, Walking with God is poised to be another big seller. In this book...
Book Review - "God's Problem" by Bart Ehrman (03/18/08 - 45 Comments)
Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar who chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has both an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary where he studied under the renowned scholar Bruce Metzger. Though he formerly considered himself a Christian and even pastored a church, he is now an avowed agnostic. Much of Ehrman’s career has been dedicated to attempting to prove that history has...
Book Review - "A Tale of Two Sons" by John MacArthur (03/11/08 - 17 Comments)
The story of the Prodigal Son is undoubtedly among the best-known and most highly-favored tales of all time. Even those who do not know the story itself are familiar with its outline or some of the words and phrases that arose from its King James translation. A powerful and heart-rending story, it is unforgettable to all who hear it. John MacArthur, with no hyperbole, says it is “hands down, the greatest five minutes of storytelling...
"The Case for Civility" by Os Guinness (03/08/08 - 3 Comments)
“It would be a safe but sad bet that someone, somewhere in the world, is killing someone else at this very moment in the name of religion or ideology.” Thus begins The Case for Civility by Os Guinness. Every day the media brings us stories of death and mayhem and often religion and ideology are to blame. The bookshelves at your local bookstore are groaning under the weight of books by atheists—Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins—who blame...
Book Review - American Fascists (03/06/08 - 5 Comments)
I’ve read the books of today’s leading atheists—Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins. I’ve read their books and know all about their reasons for hating Christianity and despising the very idea of God. They’ve all sold millions of books and have all traveled the world with their message that God and His followers are what’s most wrong with the world. But I don’t know that anyone of them ever sounded so irrational and so ignorant as Chris...
Book Review - Get Married (03/04/08 - 27 Comments)
Candice Watters’ professor just about blew her mind. “I was sitting in class learning about all the ways our country was slipping from its constitutional foundations. And in a moment of exasperation, I raised my hand and called out, ‘So what’s the solution?’” It wasn’t what she expected. Her professor told her to get married, to have babies, and to do government (and in that order, too). Here she was, in grad school pursuing a...
"Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor" by D.A. Carson (02/27/08 - 18 Comments)
I try not to make a habit of posting book reviews two days in a row, but in this case I felt this book was so special that I needed to bring your attention to it. There are some Christians whose ministries God blesses in extraordinary ways. They preach to thousands and their books are read by millions. But this is the exception far more than the rule. Most Christians labor in relative obscurity, largely...
Book Review - "Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana" by Anne Rice (02/26/08 - 24 Comments)
Anne Rice has undergone a radical transformation. A bestselling author, whose novels have sold over 100 million copies, she recently returned to the Roman Catholic faith of her youth, and in so doing abandoned her former subject matter (vampires) and turned instead to a series of books dramatizing the life of Jesus Christ. The first book in Rice’s series, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (released in the fall of 2005) was critically acclaimed and...
Book Review - "Red Letter Christians" by Tony Campolo (02/24/08 - 37 Comments)
There are some people who will probably read no further than the title of Red Letter Christians, the latest offering from Tony Campolo. The reference to Red Letters will no doubt convince people, even before they read the book, that it is a defense of ignoring the black letters of the Bible (which is to say, most of the Bible) in favor of the red words (the words actually spoken by Jesus). While I, too,...
Book Review - "Vintage Jesus" by Mark Driscoll (02/19/08 - 66 Comments)
Vintage Jesus is the first book published under the banner of Resurgence Literature (Re:Lit) which is a ministry of Resurgence (which is, in turn supported by Mars Hill Church). This is also the first title in a series called “Vintage Jesus” that will build on the themes and doctrines introduced in this book. It is one of six(!) new books we’ll see this year from the pen of Mark Driscoll. The book is a collaborative...
Book Review - "The Reason for God" by Tim Keller (02/12/08 - 16 Comments)
There are many people I “know” primarily through their books. I read constantly and find that books allow me to understand the people who write them, especially when the author has written several books. As I read through the corpus of his writings I learn to understand how he thinks and learn to understand what he believes. Even if I have never met an author face-to-face, I often feel like I have met him in...
