A couple of weeks ago I was browsing through my pastor's library and remarking on the number of people who lay claim to “the next Reformation.” Over twenty years ago, Robert Schuller told us it would be a Reformation of self-esteem and more recently his protg Rick Warren that it will be one of purpose. Other books tell us the next Reformation will involve breaking the church body into small groups, essentially giving the church back to the people in the same way that the first Reformation gave the theology back to the people. And now Hugh Hewitt has entered the fray with his latest book Blog, predicting that the next Reformation will be blogging. The book is subtitled “Understanding the information Reformation that's changing your world” and the front cover adds, “Why you must know how the blogosphere is smashing the old media monopoly and giving individuals power in the marketplace of ideas.” This is a book about the power and importance of blogging. If you are looking for a “how-to” guide to get you started or a book that will explain the pros and cons of commenting or tell you what a trackback ping is, you will have to look elsewhere.

Brian Flynn is the founder and director of One Truth Ministries and leads “Now Age” seminars before churches and groups around the United States. But long before he felt such love and concern for the church, he was a psychic medium who hated Christianity with every fiber of his being. Running Against The Wind is the story of his radical transformation.

There is little reason to describe the author’s purpose in writing Testing The Claims of Church Growth, for the title makes it self-evident. My initial interest in this book was based on the description which says, “For 13 years prior to entering the ministry, Rev. Rodney E. Zwonitzer was a high-level corporate marketing executive for Westinghouse, Storage Technology, and United Technologies Mostek. Now he lays bare the real basis for Church Growth, finding that it is not in the Bible but in business.” I assumed this book would examine the claims of church growth through the eyes of one who is adept at studying and evaluating marketing.

The book began in a promising fashion with the author providing a primer in marketing; defining it, explaining how it works, and describing his role in it when he was working with large corporations. The most notable information in this initial section is the paradigm shift companies undergo from having the product as the dominant force to the customer being supreme. There were clear reflections of the Church Growth movement in his analysis.

George Muller is known as a man who lived by prayer. During the course of his life he believed he had seen some 50,000 answers to prayer. He fed, clothed and housed over 10,000 orphans during his life and distributed millions of tracts, books and Bibles. He also supported missions organizations and spoke to Christians around the world. He did all this without once asking any person for money. Instead he took his supplications to God and trusted Him to provide his every need. Never once did God let him down. Muller stands in church history as a testament to God’s providence and the value of believing the promises of Scripture that God will take care of our every need.

“If there is a hell, Hitchens is going there for this book.” So said the New York Press in respose to The Missionary Position, subtitled Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Written in 1995, during the height of Mother Teresa’s popularity, this book was Hitchens’ attempt to debunk the myth that was, and remains, Mother Teresa.

Written from the perspective of one who clearly is not a Christian, this book has been likened to a cruise missle. It is narrow in scope, yet devastatingly effective, for it strikes right to the heart of the matter. How are we to reconcile Mother Teresa, who cares for the sick and destitute, and Mother Teresa who holds hands and laughs with the wife of a brutal and notorious dictator? How are we to reconcile her desire to live out Christianity when she accepts million-dollar donations from the likes of Charles Keating?

Never have Christians tried to be so relevant, and yet never have they been so terribly irrelevant. How could this happen? It is this question that Os Guinness addresses in Prophetic Untimeliness, which claims to be “A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance.” Guinness says that the goal of the book is to explore how the stupidity of relevance has come about. “How on earth have we Christians become so irrelevant when we have tried so hard to be relevant?…Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously; never have Christians been more relevant” (page 11, 12).

Josh Harris is all grown up. The man who brought us I Kissed Dating Goodbye when he was just twenty-one, and who is best known for bringing courtship to a whole new generation, is now senior pastor of a large and growing church and no longer speaks at conferences. Stop Dating The Church is his first book targetted at an audience wider than merely teens and parents of teens.

Harris believes that many, and perhaps even the majority of Christians, have a fear of committment to the church. Rather than committing to a local body of believers, most Christians “date the church,” refusing to commit to a long-term relationship. He says, “This is my third book on relationships, but it’s unlike any of my previous books…this book is about how you should relate to the family of God” (page 12). In Failing to commit to the church, we cheat ourselves, we cheat our church community and we cheat the world.

If evangelicals wish to take stock of where they are now and what the future of the church holds, they must look to the past and understand from where it is they have come. Evangelicalism Divided by Iain Murray, would be a perfect place to start, for it is a record of the changes that took place in the American and British churches in the years 1950 to 2000. It records the rise of influences and influencers that ultimately changed the course of evangelicalism.

The book begins with an examination of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) and the theology of experience that influenced so many. The God of Schleiermacher was a mere man, and one who bore little resemblance to the God of the Bible. To defend God against criticism, Schleiermacher redefined Christianity as mere subjectivity and not an objective Truth. This stunning departure from Scripture provides a foundation for many beliefs that later gained prominence in evangelicalism.

Almost everyone who believes in the existence of heaven also believes he will be there. I cannot count the number of times I have heard the statistic that fully 99% of Americans believe they will be in heaven some day. However, the Bible certainly gives no reason to believe that 99% of people will be welcomed into heaven. Thus many people, and perhaps even the majority of people, live with false assurance of their eternal destination. How Can I Be Sure I’m A Christian by Don Whitney, is a book concerned with helping Christians understand how they be assured of their salvation and how to discern true from false assurance.

Sometimes I read a book that has come with such numerous and lofty recommendations that really it can only be disappointing. Having heard so much about how the book will change my life and cause my faith to grow in leaps and bounds, I have often found the reality to be disappointing. Conversely, sometimes a book comes unhyped and unheralded and takes my heart and mind by storm. Such is the case with The Cross He Bore by Frederick Leahy.