After the publication of The Reason for God, Newsweek hailed Tim Keller as “a C.S. Lewis for the twenty-first century.” That is a lofty comparison and one I’m sure must make Keller quite uncomfortable. Yet at some level the comparisons are becoming undeniable. Keller’s ability to communicate to believers and unbelievers alike and to do so on an intellectual level clearly parallels that of Lewis. Where Keller’s first book offered an explanation as to why we should believe in God, his second, The Prodigal God, focuses on Jesus’ best-known parable (and arguably the best-known and most-loved story of all-time) to challenge both believers and skeptics.

It is no small thing to take upon oneself the name Christian. Though it was first used as a form of derision when unbelievers mocked the “little Christs,” the name was embraced by the earliest believers. The term, even when used mockingly, nicely encapsulated what they sought to do, namely, to imitate their Lord and Savior. Sadly, in the centuries since then, the word has become far too ambiguous and now refers to any number of faiths that, in one way or another, honor or respect Christ or that have some historical connection to his teachings. Amazingly, some of those called by the name of Christ actually deny him—perhaps not his existence but at least his uniqueness and his divinity. In Christless Christianity Michael Horton argues that such denial of Christ may not be too far from home. More and more evangelical churches, he says, are now essentially Christless.

Death by Love is Mark Driscoll’s fourth book (or eighth if you count the “A Book You’ll Actually Read” series of booklets released earlier this year by Crossway) and the second to be released in the 2008 calendar year. It follows Vintage Jesus, Confessions of a Reformission Rev. and The Radical Reformission. Along with Vintage Jesus it is the second to be co-written with Gerry Breshears. Death by Love is unique among Driscoll’s books in that it is serious in tone from the first page to the last; gone is the sometimes-irreverent humor and gone is the biographical theme. In place comes a deadly-serious look at deadly-serious theology.

"This book deals with a question that no twenty-first-century Christian can afford to ignore: does God-given prophecy continue in today's church, or doesn't it? And, if it does, can those who announce such prophecies sometimes get things wrong?" So says Stuart Olyott in his Foreword to Prophecy Today. In this brief book, Jim Thompson lays out his argument against contemporary prophecy. He does so in three chapters, presenting a logical argument that is both simple to understand and easy to follow.

In the past weeks I have spent some time wrestling with issues related to the environment and creation care. I have been seeking distinctly Christian wisdom on this issue, seeking to learn how we, as Christians, are to understand this world and our role in its care and protection. Last week I turned to Francis Schaeffer's Pollution and the Death of Man hoping and even expecting that it would answer some of my deepest questions.

Schaeffer acknowledges from the beginning of this book what our society's secular humanists cannot--that mankind has been called by God to exercise dominion over the earth. But like everything else in this world, man's ability to exercise such dominion has been affected by the Fall. No longer do we tend the world always in love, but instead we ravage and pillage it. Though we may not believe in all of the dire claims being made about the world today, we must at least acknowledge that we have not cared for the world as God has called us to.

In his rather unique ministry, Mark Driscoll has come across some rather unique challenges. Among these challenges has been finding a way of addressing some of the fundamentals of the Christian faith with a fast-growing church body comprised primarily of men and women who have no Christian background whatsoever. Because Driscoll found that he would not able to meet with each of these people one-by-one, he began to write booklets which were subsequently distributed by the thousands. Crossway happened upon these books and entered into a publishing agreement to print and distribute this series they've called "A Book You Will Actually Read." The booklets are part of the literature ministry of Resurgence, called Re:lit (which, in turn, is a ministry of Mars Hill Church).

With Disney's adaptation of Prince Caspian having just arrived on the big screen, we have seen a flood of Narnia-related books hitting the store shelves. Readers who searched for books to coincide with the release of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will be familiar with many of the authors and their books. Devin Brown's Inside Prince Caspain is written in the same style and format as Inside Narnia. Leland Ryken's and Marjorie Mead's A Reader's Guide To Caspian is the sequel to A Reader's Guide Through the Wardrobe. And Christin Ditchfield's A Family Guide to Prince Caspian is a follow-up to A Family Guide to the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

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. But a moment's reflection made me realize that a proper answer would have to touch on all kinds of issues of theological significance. Thankfully my son is quite a good listener and we were able to turn his question into a good chat.

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 intimidated as I look at them and consider that each of them weighs in at several hundred pages. I know that twelve hundred or more pages of dense content would prove quite the challenge to me and to my too-short attention span.

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 of "big box Christianity" of the church growth movement. Tired of seeing people as products and weary of experiencing church as a form of entertainment, church-goers have searched to find churches that offer a more satisfying approach to the Christian life. Many have gravitated towards emerging churches. Many others, though, have taken the opposite approach and have discovered the theology of the Reformation.