Carson’s Review of Wright’s Evil and the Justice of God

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As I am catching up on some projects and reading, I just read Don Carson’s 10 page review of N. T. Wright’s Evil and the Justice of God. I recommend the review to you. It is good reading for pastors. Dealing with the reality of suffering and evil in the world is a perennial pastoral task (I would recommend Carson’s own book How Long O Lord on this). Carson summarizes the book chapter by chapter noting strengths. Then he turns to critique. The critiques get to the heart of many troublesome issues arising today.

For example Carson challenges Wright’s portrayal of God as “having” to work in certain ways to “fix” the world, and the emerging overly psychologized picture of God needing to “release himself from the burden of always having to be angry with a world gone wrong” (Wright’s words). Carson also challenges the regular description of God’s plan as “daring and risky” involving “so much ambiguity.”

There is much here- more than I can summarize now- so I encourage you to print off the review and take time to read it. It is helpful discussion for keeping our thinking rooted biblically in an age of increasing theological confusion.

Dorothy Sayers on Doctrine

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Kairos Journal has posted several quotes from Dorothy Sayers on the importance and value of doctrine. Her words are as pertinent and valuable today as they were 60 or so years ago. Here are a couple of the quotes:

Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as a bad press. We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine – dull dogma as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man – and the dogma is the drama.

. . . . for the cry today is: “Away with the tedious complexities of dogma – let us have the simple spirit of worship; just worship, no matter of what!” The only drawback to this demand for a generalized and undirected worship is the practical difficulty of arousing any sort of enthusiasm for the worship of nothing in particular.

Dorothy Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine (Nashville: W. Publishing Group, 2004), 1, 15.

My Dad’s Stroke

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It has been a while since I have posted so I thought I should just give folks an update on things. We had a great vacation, but on the way back I got word that my Dad had had a stroke. Eventually we found out it was a major stroke in the brain stem. However, he has made great progress. He was working on making his left arm work before the physical therapist got there to encourage him to do just that. His spirit has been great! His speech has improved greatly, and before leaving the hospital he walked down the hall and back with assistance. This week he moved from the hospital to the rehab facility.
I have been encouraged just watching my Dad’s spirit and perseverance.

The Dangerous Book for Boys

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The Dangerous Book for Boys, Hal Iggulden
(Harper Collins, 2007), hb, 270 pp.

A couple of weeks ago a good friend of mine, Joey Jenkins, sent me the Amazon link for this book suggesting it sounded like something my boys and I would enjoy. I was really intrigued- and the video at Amazon is fun. That same night we went to Sam’s to prepare for our trip and as the boys and I went to the book section (our typical hangout in Sam’s!) we found copies of this book! We spent a good bit of the time looking through the book and purchased it. I liked the book so much I wanted to write something about it before leaving town but did not have time. In the meantime I was scooped by Dr. Mohler and others! J

We took this book with us on our trip and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I am particularly taken with the overall vision of boyhood implied in the book. The call to active, outdoor play, activity and building is great and has been talked about in some of the other reviews. This is of course the heart of the book, but I was fascinated to see how this was integrated into a whole view of boyhood. Amongst instructions for fishing, making paper airplanes, tripwires, skipping stones, fireproofing cloth, etc. are also the stories of famous battles, identifying leaves, insects and stars, Latin phrases every boy should know, poems every boy should know, a sampling of Shakespeare, a list of recommended books for reading and several installments of grammar lessons, and the Ten Commandments. This is obvious the result of an intentional view of developing boys into men who can work with their hands and take risks while being articulate and thoughtful.

This comment from the introduction communicates the vision well:
“The stories of courage can be read as simple adventures- or perhaps as inspiration, examples of extraordinary acts by ordinary people….  They’re not just cracking stories, they’re part of a culture, a part we really don’t want to see vanish.”

We have enjoyed looking through various portions of the book (like the list of all the baseball MVP’s to the present), and have found the book to be useful in various pursuits of ours. While working on our treehouse this past weekend, we used this book to see how to tie the required knots in our rope. Earlier the section on identifying insects was really helpful. My oldest son amused himself during part of our traveling by making his own secret code.

We highly recommend this book. In my next post I will plan to mention a few books similar to this one (at least in parts) that have not received as much attention but we have enjoyed.

Colonial Vacation

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My family & I left for vacation today so I may not post much the next week or so (though I have a few books waiting to be commented on). In keeping with the books we’ve been reading on the colonial era of American history we are going to visit Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown. We also plan to see the Navy yard at Norfolk. We have just started reading a historical novel set in Williamsburg- Independence, by Peter Reese Doyle, part of the Drums of War series. So far it is really good. We hope to finish it while on this trip, and I’ll plan to review it shortly thereafter.

M’Kethe Saga Continues in America

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Guns of Thunder, Douglas Bond
Faith & Freedom Series
(P&R Publishing, 2007), pb., 260 pp.
Age 10 & up

This is the first volume in Bond’s new series which continues to follow the M’Kethe family, who were introduced in the Crown & Covenant Series. The previous series closed with Duncan and Angus leading their family to America. This story opens with the family settled in Connecticut just before the French & Indian War. Malcom, Duncan’s son, is now a grandfather, helping to raise his grandson, Ian, who is the main character. Ian’s father has died, so Father Malcolm, as he is called, lives with his family. Ian’s cousin and best friend, Roland, is also a key character.

The story follows the family through the rising tensions with the French into the War itself. Also, they must deal with the rise of rationalism and its skepticism about the Bible. Along the way they even have an opportunity to hear Jonathan Edwards preach. Ian wrestles with his doubts and fears, and must face his prejudice and fear towards Indians, particularly Watookoog, a mysterious acting Indian who knew his father.

This story is not quite as compelling as the previous three. It starts a bit slower and the early discussion of Rationalism and Calvinism was slower going for my boys (ages 10, 9, 7 & 5). However, it did provide a good opportunity for me to discuss with them how people began to doubt the supernatural. The chapter relating the family’s listening to Edwards preach “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was particularly good. I really appreciated the opportunity to read that to my boys. That chapter alone makes this book worth reading (though there is much else good about the book). Eventually Ian is drawn into battle and the adventure level increases.

Bond once again presents a strong father figure (grandfather this time), leading his family and applying the Bible naturally to all of life. This one key reason for reading these books.

We eagerly await the next volume, and commend this one.

Puritans, Your Best Life Yet to Come

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There is much wisdom to be gleaned here, both in how we live and in how we shepherd the souls of people. When you think of the pastoral role in terms of “preparing the saints to leave this world in peace when their time comes”, you automatically leave behind much of what goes under the name of pastoral ministry today. We need this perspective simply to understand the Bible and to persevere, but also to shape us into shepherds guiding souls to the Celestial City rather than hawkers of just one more bauble to add to life.

“Third, these Puritans were great hopers. One notable strength of the Puritans, setting them far apart from Western Christians today, was the firmness of their grip on the biblical teaching about the hope of heaven. Basic to their pastoral care was their understanding of the Christian’s present life as a journey home, and they made much of encouraging God’s people to look ahead and feast their hearts on what is to come. The classic works here are Richard Baxter’s massive Saints’ Everlasting Rest, written to show how the hope of glory, analysed by biblical study and internalised by meditation, should give believers energy and direction for present living, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, both parts of which reach their climax with triumphant passages through Jordan to the celestial city. The vividness of the vision of heaven in both Baxter and Bunyan is remarkable by any standards; sanctified imagination gives concreteness and colour to theological perception, resulting in extraordinary power to convey the flow of glory to the Christian heart. The Puritan point, which was first, of course, a New Testament point, was that Christians should know what their hope is and draw from it power to resist whatever discouragements and distractions present circumstances may produce. The unreadiness of pain and death that Western Christians too often reveal today contrasts unhappily with the realism and joyful hope that the Puritan masters inculcated in order to prepare the saints to leave this world in peace when their time came.” (334)

– Packer, J.I. A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990

Touchstone, 2

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Yesterday I commented briefly on a great editorial from the April issue of Touchstone magazine. Today, I want to mention to other articles from that issue.

First, Amanda Witt contributed “Distant Neighbors: On Keeping Children Innocent When Lesbians Move in.” This is a compelling account of the Witt’s family leading their children as they encounter the “new family” in their neighborhood, two lesbians with a daughter, and the questions this raises for the Witt children. It is honest, humble, faithful and a great example of gospel-centered engagement. One of the greatest elements is that it is not in any way triumphalistic. It seems to me they have handled this very well, but she is transparent about the troubling questions this has raised for their children, questions one would certainly have rather not have raised yet. But, we live in a fallen world, and we need not pretend otherwise. Good fodder for pastoral as well as parental thinking. (the full article is available online)

The second article is another gritty, honest piece from a mother. Annegret Hunter’s “Losers Keepers: The Liberating Power of Negative Thinking” is certainly a keeper! She describes the hectic life of motherhood and how it makes her look like a loser in the eyes of the feminist circles she once inhabited. I smiled at numerous places in her opening sections recognizing things which my wife has also said. Mrs. Hunter then moves to discussing how the gospel addresses us not as “winners” as so typically suggested in the shallower realms of evangelicalism but as “losers” who need the rescue of the one true Champion. The personal account she gives is moving.

Touchstone Magazine

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As my most recent issue of Touchstone arrived a few days ago, I realized I had not yet written the post I intended on how much I enjoyed the April issue! This is really a great magazine, and I commend it to you. Let me point to three articles from the April issue to illustrate.

First, David Mills’ editorial, “Dwelling in Tentatives: The Gift of Christian Uncertainty,” is a great word for us. He addresses how Christian’s are so often expected to be certain about every issue and the sense that if we do not have certain answers to everything somehow that disproves our belief.

“It is a dynamic worth considering, because the Christian often finds himself outside the typical polarity, precisely because he is a Christian. We are constantly treated in the mainstream media as people who are unreasonably and dangerously certain, when in fact because we are certain about a few things, we can be uncertain about many others, while those who are uncertain about the few must be certain about the others.” (3)

“The Christian does not need to believe that almost every decision is obvious and crucial.” (3)

“The Christian does not have a final answer to all the practical questions of living rightly in a fallen world, if ‘final’ means completely or almost completely n this world. He does not have a final answer of this sort, yet because he believes in eternal mercy and justice, he does not have to pretend that there is one. He can do the best he can, confident that the Father, who loves suffering men infinitely more than we do, will in his own time and way make all things right.” (p. 4)

With echoes of 1 Peter 4:19, this is very solid, helpful counsel.

Time (and space!) is up. I’ll address the other two articles in a follow up post.