The Man Born to be King - A Review

In the midst of World War II in the U.K. and all the drama that it entailed, there was some additional drama about a drama. At the center of the hubbub was novelist, playwright, and translator Dorothy L. Sayers.

Perhaps best known for her detective novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, Sayers was also an accomplished dramatist. The BBC commissioned her to write a series of plays for children, to be performed on the radio. They were to be plays about the life and ministry of Jesus.

The cycle of twelve plays was called The Man Born to be King. Though they are not exhaustive, they cover the span of Jesus earthly life, and were meant to be something of a comfort to a nation at war.

Unfortunately, like many well-intentioned attempts to convey Christianity to the masses, Sayers’ efforts met with controversy. The Man Born to be King drew great praise, but it also left people deeply concerned because Sayers used slang rather than King James English to help convey the reality of the Gospel accounts. Additionally, some were concerned about the representation of Jesus, though Sayers was especially careful to draw his dialogue more directly from Scripture. And, of course, any dramatist must fill in some gaps that even four Gospel writers left with minor characters, extrabiblical narrative, and details that illustrate the truths embedded in the life of Christ. The tragedy is really that these plays tend to be more remembered for the drama they caused rather than the greater Drama they portrayed.

The cycle of plays known as The Man Born to be King are so rich that C. S. Lewis read them yearly as Easter approached. This recent republication of these plays by IVP Academic is in time for people to pick up their own copies to follow Lewis’ example.

The plays themselves are not innovative. In fact, were readers not aware of the controversy surrounding their original production, a contemporary audience would find little that is shocking in them. They are an attempt to faithfully convey the greatest story ever told in a manner that may seem more real to contemporary readers because of the effort Sayers invested to bring the stories into the 20th century. Sayers’ effort is part of what makes these plays so spiritually invigorating.

Though an edition of these plays can be found in print through Wipf and Stock, the recent edition of The Man Born to Be King from IVP Academic, published in partnership with the Marion E Wade Center out of Wheaton University, has accompanying notations that enrich the text by providing context for somewhat obscure (to our minds, nearly a century later) references and also show some of the ways that Sayers modified her manuscript along the way. This annotated edition, edited by Kathryn Wehr, augments the text in a way that does not interfere with casual reading and provides a treasure trove for fans of Dorothy L. Sayers.

Whether you read these plays in preparation for Easter or at another point during the year, it will be spiritually beneficial. If this is your first time through The Man Born to be King, feel free to skip the front matter and notes to dive into the text. However, for those who are interested in the story behind the text, what Wehr provides through her annotations is well worth the time to pause and investigate. This new volume is solid scholarship accompanying a remarkable text. It should be read well and widely.

The Man Born to Be King: Wade Annotated Edition

By Sayers, Dorothy L.

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NOTE: I was provided a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis - A Review

For some people, another book about C. S. Lewis leaves them scratching their head wondering what else there is to say. For other people, new analysis of Lewis’ grocery shopping habits would be a must read.

I can say that I am much closer to being in the second camp than the first, though I have reached the point in my studies that the mere presence of Lewis’ portrait on the cover or his name in the title of a book are no longer enough to get me excited.

I am, however, excited to have read the recent book on Lewis by Jason Baxter, The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind. It is a relatively brief volume and it takes up questions that have been explored in other volumes, but it also explores them in ways that I have not encountered in my research in the secondary literature on C. S. Lewis.

Allow me to begin by explaining a few reasons why this book is worth your time and money.

First, it is a concise volume at just over 160 pages. Too many books are about twenty-five percent too long these days. They make their case and then they continue to do so well after their point has been well expressed. Baxter avoids that, leaving the reader interested by the end, which is a gift to the serial reader.

Second, Baxter makes Lewis the main subject of the book not his own research. When writing on a subject has reached a certain critical mass it becomes possible to read a book that claims to be about a topic, but it is really about the author’s interactions with books and articles about the topic instead of the topic itself. The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis interacts with significant segments of the secondary literature, but the majority of the sources are Lewis’ works and the main thrust of the book’s arguments is an interaction with and exposition of C. S. Lewis. This is a volume that leads the reader to Lewis and beyond the author’s own mind.

Third, The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis explores a major aspect of Lewis’ work that is well-deserving of attention. Lewis described himself as a dinosaur, by which he meant that he was really a man of an earlier age, specifically the medieval age. This has been explored to some degree in several biographies of Lewis. It was also the thrust of Chris Armstrong’s book, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians. Baxter’s book is distinct from these earlier volumes because it explores some of Lewis’ lesser known works, like Allegory of Love and Discarded Image, while tying those resources to the books that Lewis read, interacted with, and in some cases helped maintain some interest in among contemporary scholars.

The end result is a volume that is a pleasure to read, deepens the readers understanding of Lewis and medieval thought, and connects to some lesser explored aspects of Lewis scholarship.

This is the sort of volume that has significant explanatory power. It helps to explain why Narnia feels different and that when reading Lewis one encounters something deeper than the offerings of much of modernity. Baxter begins by describing the medieval cosmos, then explores Lewis’ deep roots in the scholarship of the era. He then introduces some of the counterpoints between antiquity and modernity, the shifts in the understanding of the human mind and person. Baxter goes on to explore the ways Lewis went beyond the presuppositions of his day to see the wonder of humanity, and the mystery of God. These all contribute to a worldview that tends to tear down barriers build by modern constructs.

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis is an instructive book that may serve for some readers as an introduction to sources often unknown to contemporary readers. For those coming to Lewis anew, being pointed to Boethius and Dante, for example, may open up new worlds for explorations and broader reading lists for continued digging.

Baxter’s book is a good one. It is thoroughly readable and can be consumed by someone without an advanced degree in literature, philosophy, or theology. It is engaging and carefully constructed. For those that love C. S. Lewis, it is a welcome exploration in a cherished topic. This is a book that belongs on the shelf of the Lewis scholar, the teacher hoping to get a student engaged in some deeper thinking. More significantly, it belongs in the hands of a reader hoping to be delighted and broadened through the reading experience.

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind

By Baxter, Jason M.

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NOTE: I was provided a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

From Plato to Christ - A Review

In the final pages of The Chronicles of Narnia in the grand eschatological conclusion to The Last Battle we find Professor Digory Kirke explaining the wonder that is before the faithful Narnians, muttering to himself impatiently as he tries to explain what is happening to the English children: “It’s all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them at these schools!”

That is a comment that went largely over my head when first I read of Narnia. All I knew of ancient Greek philosophy in my school days came from the brief summaries of their lives in history textbooks, which might tell me something like, “Plato was the student of Socrates. He wrote much of the canon of Western philosophy.” Additional contributions came from sources like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which made a joke of pronouncing the names and generally reinforced the plausibility of ignorance. What did they teach in these schools, indeed!

Entirely missing from the accounts of any of the classical philosophers was the content of their teaching. That level of ignorance was only reinforced in college, where I earned a degree and became a Really Smart Person without ever encountering more than a passing familiarity with some of the philosopher that have largely shaped the contours of Western thought and civilization.

Then the classical education revival became more prominent, I had kids, we decided to homeschool, and I started to read C. S. Lewis more broadly. I came to understand that in order to understand where we are culturally and where we might want to go, it is necessary to understand how we got here. That includes both through the influence of Christianity and other sources. Moreover, how can I provide the sort of education to my children I wish I had had when I’m too busy to master all the information myself? I need an entry point to help bring things together.

From Plato to Christ: How Platonic Thought Shaped the Christian Faith is a resource that can stand in the gap for many parents who, like me, did not receive a classical education and lack time to cram it all in to teach our children. In this volume Louis Markos highlights significant points of contact between Christianity and Plato’s philosophy. He shows why some Christians theologians have been enamored of Plato and will describe themselves as platonic. He also shows some ways that some theologians may have less helpfully appropriated portions of Plato’s philosophy.

Markos is a classicist who teaches at Houston Baptist University. He has written extensively on the truthfulness of Christianity, ancient Greek and Roman cultures, various works of the Inklings, and certainly more. In other words, he’s just the sort of individual to teach contemporary Christians without a background in ancient philosophy about the relationship between philosophy and Christianity.

The first half of From Plato to Christ is a summary of the teaching of Plato’s philosophy. The work Markos does in the first six chapters is not exhaustive, but it lays the groundwork for the points of contact he will highlight with Christian theologians later in the work. This section of the book is enough to inspire greater interest for those unfamiliar with Plato and help draw some themes together for those, like me, who are somewhere at a midpoint on our journey to understanding philosophy.

The second half of the volume looks back through the Christian tradition at ways Plato and the platonic tradition have influenced Christian thinking. This is the section that will serve as a litmus test for how one perceives the relationship between Christ and culture and the way that a reader views common grace. For some, the influence of Plato on Christian thinking is a pollution of the pure source. For others, the influence of Plato on Christian thinking is a powerful aid to Scripture. The portrait Markos provides is something of both, which makes this volume balanced and helpful.

On the one hand, it is sometimes astonishing how much of what Plato and other ancient philosophers accomplished apart from direct special revelation. There are points at which they reasoned out the right ordering of the universe without a word from God. On the other hand, Markos makes it clear where Plato and his intellectual descendants clearly missed the mark. For example, Plato is one of the ancient philosophers who viewed women as deformed men—lesser creatures—which did negatively influence the Christian tradition. These pagan philosophers must not be taken without parsing their words carefully, as Markos regularly reminds readers.

To my mind, Markos ends up too positive toward Plato. At several points he describes him as inspired—not in the same sense as Scripture, but more than simply artistically. I’m not sure that is necessary. However, Markos is fair in pointing out the failings of the Platonic tradition where it has corrupted Christian theology. If nothing else, this book has the potential to help contemporary readers sift through the Western Christian theological tradition more carefully, becoming aware of the sources and ideas that were influencing them. Markos provides a helpful tool that can be used with Scripture to parse through the Christian tradition and ask whether a particular conclusion is indeed biblical or if it relies on conceptions from another source.

Most significantly, Markos can help the contemporary reader make sense of the platonic tradition and be better equipped to appreciate the goodness of it. This is a book that is engaging to read, but also useful. While it does not replace the reading of the original sources, Markos provides a commentary that can help readers understand the original sources better. This is the sort of instruction that a parent seeking to guide their children in a classical education—which they likely lacked themselves—will find invaluable.

From Plato to Christ: How Platonic Thought Shaped the Christian Faith

By Markos, Louis

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

The Story Retold - A Review

As Qoheleth warned his son, “There is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body.” (Ecc 12:12b, CSB)

This may be said of publishing in our day and age, even of evangelical publishing, with more new books being pumped out than any person can possibly read. And yet, there are so many good books being published that it is difficult to let them pass by. Sadly, there are many engaging books that I never open the covers of. But the ones that I do find are often worth writing about.

One recent, good book that I’ve had opportunity to peruse is G. K. Beale’s and Benjamin Gladd’s volume, The Story Retold: A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament. The occasion of my reading this book is preparation of a New Testament survey for my daughter’s homeschool curriculum, but the benefit has extended well beyond that preparation.

In my library I have multiple whole-Bible and New Testament biblical theologies. I also have a handful of intro or survey texts for the New Testament. What need is there for yet another item in my home library on the same topic?

Need may be too strong a word here, but there is certainly benefit in owning this beautiful and rich book.

I was expecting another survey text with a little more theological thrust, but Beale and Gladd have gone well beyond that. This is a book that should be paired with a standard survey (they recommend Carson and Moo), because The Story Retold skips much of the standard authorship, dating, textual criticism information and jumps into what the text says, what it means, and how that relates to the rest of the canon of Scripture.

This book is deeper than a basic introduction, exploring the corners of significance and sometimes seeming more like a commentary than a survey text. In many cases, Gladd and Beale do a lot of work to show how a given book of the New Testament fits in with other New Testament books and especially Old Testament books. One of Beale’s major interests is temple imagery throughout the canon, so it is little surprise that shows up on a regular basis in this volume.

The Story Retold is a valuable resource in a Christian’s home library because it pushes the reader toward a deeper understanding of the whole message of Scripture. The “verse a day” mentality is demolished as the pieces are put together into a beautiful mosaic that reveals Christ as the central character of all of Scripture.

In addition to its helpful content, this volume is simply beautiful. It is printed on heavy, glossy paper with full color illustrations. The publishing team included artwork and illustrative photographs that enrich the text, not merely adorn it. The book is, itself, simply a pleasure to read and peruse.

The challenge of this volume is that it may be a hard place for beginners to start. The subtitle indicates that it is an introduction, but in some ways this is an introduction to the particular method of reading Scripture—Biblical theology—rather than to the text itself. If a new believer is looking for a place to begin to try to put the pieces of Scripture together, The Story Retold may prove heavy going without an experienced guide. However, for the saint who has some of the basics down, this is a book that will accelerate growth in biblical understanding and depth of knowledge of the whole message of the Bible.

This book has gone from a supplemental text that I was using to prepare some lectures for my daughter’s homeschool curriculum to a book that is going to be a core textbook for the course. Moreover, I would encourage Christians building their libraries to add this book. Pastors should own a copy, because I’ve referenced it in preparation for Sunday School lessons and can see its helpfulness for sermon prep. Professors teaching a NT Intro or Survey should consider this as a secondary text that will significantly enhance the students’ understanding of the Bible. Families should consider having this accessible because children may find themselves thumbing through the pictures and straying to examine the valuable content.

In short, The Story Retold is a useful book. It is a good book. It is a beautiful book. And it is a book that deserves a wide and long-term audience.

The Story Retold: A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament

By Beale, G. K., Gladd, Benjamin L.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Reading the Times - A Review

Most local newspapers are dying. The little paper in my city has been reduced to high school sports, complaints about the nearby nuclear plant, classified ads, and the occasional social gossip. More and more newspapers are shifting to a model of reprinting what comes through on some subscription service. This has had the effect of trivializing the news, so that local stories about small-scale, but important deeds like a teen giving her father CPR or a child finding the foundation of an old historical building while exploring the back woods disappear. In their place we get news about a smaller and smaller set of less and less real people who happen to have a large following on social media, their own TV show, and might have moderate talent in some other area of life. We end up knowing more about a rich, beautiful, spoiled person whom we will never meet than we do about our neighbor down the block.

The media by which we take in the news of the day affects the trivialization of the world, though it does not mandate it. Many people get their news from social media, which means that it tends to be ideologically slanted toward opinions shared with one’s friends. Since one of the basic presuppositions of our society is that if you associate with someone you agree with them, a bubble of reality begins to form. And, since the art of disagreeing temperately on social media is difficult to learn, opposing ideas are often avoiding or ignored rather than engaged and questioned. Comments are either strongly affirming or attacking the opinion under consideration, because to say “yes, but” or “maybe this, yet not that” is a needle that few can thread from a keyboard.

But it is our behaviors that trivialize the news. We share articles with misleading headlines, sometimes without having read the body. We look for opinions that excoriate our outgroup. The algorithm feeds our human behavior and continues to provide the material for which we have developed a taste. And we must be clear that our taste has been developed through our own actions, or, at least, through our own failures to resist the tendency of the news medium to trivialize our view of the world.

What can we do about it?

Jeffrey Bilbro’s book, Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News, provides both an apt diagnosis of the problem and some particularly helpful steps toward alleviating it. The result is a succinct, clearly-written book that is accessible to the layperson.

Bilbro’s diagnosis is not particularly innovative. He is channeling the energy of Wendell Berry, Jacques Ellul, Neil Postman, and Thoreau in arguing that the way news is presented is not good for the human condition. In application, Bilbro’s solutions are much more reliant on Berry and Thoreau (whom Bilbro has written about previously) than the other two thinkers. In any case, innovation is not what is needed, but intelligibility and digestibility.

The core of the problem, as Bilbro presents it, is not necessarily the technology or the content of the news, but rather that too much of what we get that passes as news has very little to do with our lives, even though it is designed to rattle our cage. What we get angry or excited about often has little to do with what God is concerned about:

“Perhaps we need to conduct an emotional audit and consider which issues or news items cause us to become angry, outraged, or excited: Are we grieving over what grieves God and rejoicing over what brings him joy? Or have we become emotionally invested in trivia while growing apathetic about matters of real import?”

Bilbro recognizes that a big part of the problem is the way we read the news. As a result, the fix is to change ourselves and what we value. This is a book that is timely and well suited for those looking for an off-ramp from the highway of partisan politics, misanthropy, and emotional turmoil that often goes with the news.

After a brief introduction, in which Bilbro explains that his purpose is to help us understand how to use the news to love our neighbor better, the book is divided into three parts with three chapters each. Part One deals with attention, Part Two with time, and Part Three with community. The pattern of each part is to present the modern problem in the first chapter, put out a somewhat abstract better condition in the second chapter, and then provide some realistic practices that can help transition between the two. This pattern of problem, better vision, and help to get there makes this book a novel contribution.

Bilbro does not abstain from social media, nor does he recommend that for his readers, but he provides a means to put social media use in its place. He doesn’t recommend disconnecting from news media, but being more thoughtful of who we read, when, and how. The book presents a realistic vision of living in a world that demands our participation, but threatens us through our participation at the same time.

Much of Bilbro’s writing has had a localist bent. Like his hero, Wendell Berry, he has invested a great deal of thought in how to live in this place, right now. Modernity tends to flatten the world (a la Friedman) and create a tyranny of the eternal immediate present. Bilbro points to living better with an eternal viewpoint and a local scope, which is just the opposite of the way the news pushes us to have a global scope with an immediate viewpoint. This book won’t solve all of everyone’s problems, but it is another piece in a puzzle of dealing with the malaise of modernity.

In addition to being helpful and well-written, for those engaged in the study of modernity, this book ties a lot of pieces together. The footnotes are a roadmap to a wide range of resources for deeper study and consideration. They are also a trap for an individual’s book budget. I had to read the book again (a pleasure) before writing this review because I got sidetracked for several weeks following the leads that Bilbro laid out in his notes. Several mysterious packages showed up on the porch in the interim, which I had to explain to my wife, which was local news enough around here.

Buy the book because it is good and useful. Beware that it is going to make you stop, think, and probably even change the way you look at a few things.

Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News

By Bilbro, Jeffrey

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NOTE: I received an advanced reader copy from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

How do We Know? - A Review

One of the biggest needs in the church, especially among theologically conservative Christians, is a recovery of epistemology.

The problem is that that first statement alone will significantly limit the audience for a post like this or the sort of study that is needed to really help change the unhealthy approach to media and Bible study by many Christians.

Epistemology is the study of how we know things. It’s one of those words that until you read it a bunch of times in different settings and hear a number of people defining and explaining it, you will often have a hard time grasping what it really means.

How do we know things? Well, we just do, right? Not exactly.

In certain crowds, if I ask “How do we know?” I am likely to be told that we read the Bible. “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” I’ve seen more than a few bumper stickers to that effect.

That may be a comforting way to end a discussion for some, but how do we know that the Bible’s statements are true? What do we do with phenomena about which the Bible does not speak? In other words, even if I accept the Bible as absolutely trustworthy in everything it addresses, how do I live in a world that is culturally unlike the Bible.

Additionally, how do I know that my reading of the Bible’s statements is correct? Exposure to individuals from other cultures will quickly reveal that different people perceive different symbols different ways. How can I know that I know what is true in the Bible is really true?

That last question reveals how strange the question can get really quickly. It’s easier to jump back to “common sense” where we simply accept the received wisdom from epistemic authorities—the people or institutions we trust—than ask this slippery question.

But what happens when manipulative predators realize that folks are going to take their word for it? And what happens when there are so many entities posing as epistemic authorities because of the information age that anyone can jump on YouTube and present themselves as an authority that anyone can find and some folks will believe?

You get the right epistemic mess that we are in, with conspiracy theories flying around a mile a minute, distrust in any group that does not agree with you or your in-group, and a failure to recognize that even with an authoritative text like the Bible, a reader can bring so many presuppositions to the table that he or she can entirely misread the message. It’s a pretty bleak situation.

However, there is hope. First, because we have a living and loving God who inspired the Bible and illuminates it, so that the person of the Holy Spirit will continue to work on the minds and hearts of those who are honest in their pursuit of holiness. Second, there is hope because of books like How Do We Know? An Introduction to Epistemology, which was just released as a second edition, by Jamie Dew and Mark Foreman.

How Do We Know? is an attempt to provide a resource on a tricky subject that does not require a background in philosophy to understand. The authors come at the problem head on in the first pages of the series introduction: “Many people today have embraced, often without realizing it, an approach to knowing reality that undermines their ever coming to truly understand it.”

The book asks a series of questions in each of its chapters:

What is epistemology? What is knowledge? Where does knowledge come from? What is truth, and how do we find it? What are inferences, and how do they work? What do we perceive? Do we need justification? [of belief, not soteriology] Can we be objective in our view of the world? What is virtue epistemology? Do we have revelation? How certain can we be?

That is a lot of questions for a very short book. In about 150 pages, the authors try to provide reasonable answers to each one of those difficult, but very important questions. They do quite well.

How Do We Know? is a good place to start in getting a foothold in what I believe to be one of the most important topics for our day. There are obviously some side, tribal battles that pop up and might be cause for disagreement among more experienced theologians and philosophers. For example, some Reformed individuals who have been exposed to presuppositionalism may find points of disagreement. However, on balance, the authors are fair in their dealing with the tribal disagreements within Christian philosophy. As a result, the 150-pages of this book may be more helpful to a beginner than the 400-page tome that is John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, for example. Dew and Foreman wrote an introduction with all of its blessings and limitations. But it is a good introduction.

Even though this is the sort of book that is written specifically for those that have little background in philosophy, it requires either some scaffolding through a class or a decent education. This would make for an excellent undergraduate text, a useful volume for a small-group study with reasonably educated lay people—especially those who read. This is a book that would be well-placed withing a high school homeschool curriculum, particularly if a parent was available to help work through some of the hairy edges of the concepts. In other words, this is an accessible book, but the topic is very abstract and sometimes help is needed. Dew and Foreman have done about as well as can be done with an exceptionally important, but extremely difficult field of study.

One can hope that How Do We Know? gets a wide readership beyond academic settings. The church in general, and evangelical churches specifically, have a significant crisis of knowing, trust, and critical thinking on their hands. The answer is not more five-minute YouTube clips, but basic discipleship and training in how to process information, which is exactly what How Do We Know? provides.

How Do We Know? (Questions in Christian Philosophy)

By Dew Jr., James K., Foreman, Mark W.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Splendour in the Dark - A Review

There are those of us who would be delighted to read a shopping list that C. S. Lewis wrote. In the world of scholarship, there would be a rush to dissect it, look for literary imagery, and find out where the reference to plums coincides with one of the many feasts in the Chronicles of Narnia, demonstrating how personal the feast really was for Lewis.

As a result, the recent publication of the Wade annotated edition of Lewis’s Dymer along with analysis by Lewis expert, Jerry Root, will find a healthy reception in the world of Lewis studies. This book, Splendour in the Dark, is a good piece of scholarship that will help fill a gap in Lewis studies.

Prior to his conversion, Lewis published two books. Both were volumes of poetry. The first was a cycle of poems that were, largely, completed in the trenches of World War I. Spirits in Bondage is an early work, which shows both flashes of potential and points of weakness. Similarly, Dymer tells an interesting story, but has points of strength and elements of weakness. Were Lewis a lesser writer, these volumes would no longer be in print and rarely, if ever, discussed.

However, because of who Lewis is and has become among contemporary Christians, early works like Dymer will get discussed and related to his later works and evidence in the trajectory of his thought examined. Dymer provides rich soil for research.

The poem is something of a fantasy. It begins with a young man in a totalitarian society who breaks free having struck his teacher so hard that the teacher dies. Dymer, the title character, then goes on a journey, finds a palace, has a tryst with a goddess, meets a magician who shoots him, and eventually comes to grips with his own fantasies. The story is, in fact, quite engaging, though there are points where the narrative poem is heavy sledding. This is a poem for those seeking to study Lewis rather than for those seeking to study excellent poetry.

David Downing, the codirector of the Marion Wade Center at Wheaton, added notations to the 114-page poem, which clarify at a few points terms or allusions that are likely to get past a reader a century removed from its publication. Then the work itself is followed by several essays by Root analyzing it, with responses from some of his Wheaton colleagues.

Taken together, this reprint with annotations plus scholarly analysis by a leading expert in the field is well worth a place in the library of someone interested in Lewis studies and the college library. Root’s essays help tie Dymer to Lewis’s broader thought life. He helpfully shows where some of the pre-conversion ideas Lewis shows forth in Dymer are cultivated and bloom more vigorously in later Lewisian works. Root’s analysis is excellent, bringing to bear his decades of study in Lewis. The responses by various other Wheaton professors are at some points interesting and at some points a bit frustrating. None of the three respondents are C. S. Lewis experts, but two English professors and a theatre professor who are well-credited in other areas. Their lectures begin with too many apologies for their own lack of expertise, which is likely a testament to Root’s status in the field of Lewis studies and the obscurity of this poem—it is quite easy to find people who have strong opinions and understanding of, say, The Chronicles of Narnia, but this project likely was well outside their comfort zone. In any case, there are some helpful tidbits in the essays, but their contribution was likely strongest in their delivery as a response to a friendly audience in the moments after Root delivered his three lectures. What does come from each of the respondents is the sense that Dymer is, in fact, a second-rate poem. It is significant, but not excellent. Good, but not great. So, this book is valuable for Lewis-lovers primarily. 

Read for what it is—a reprint edition with helpful annotations and commentary on a neglected work by a famous author with a brilliant mind—this is a solid book. The purpose is accomplished with skill and quality. Splendour in the Dark is exciting for those of us who love talking about Chronicles, Surprised by Joy, and the ‘A’ Side works, but really want to go beyond. It is a good entry in that conversation, which will prompt further study, deepen the understanding of Lewis’s pre-conversion work, and generally enrich an ever-growing body of literature.

Splendour in the Dark: C. S. Lewis's Dymer in His Life and Work (Hansen Lectureship Series)

By Root, Jerry

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Reading Buechner - A Review

Frederick Buechner (spoken: Beak-ner) can be a tough nut to crack. He’s too conservative to be liberal and too liberal to be conservative. He communicates deep truths about God in powerful ways at times, and he writes in beautiful prose that helps exalt the writing of those who read him.

My first encounter with Buechner was his novel Godric, which is a fictionalized biography of a historical saint of the Roman Catholic Church. The prose is poetic, the imagery sometimes earthy, and the subject timeless. The story of a saint who was so wracked with guilt, but so venerated by the fictional biographer seeking to lionize him, makes for an interesting study of God’s grace, humility, and the nature of heroes. As it turns out, this was a good place to start, but I arrived at that starting point by accident.

Jeffrey Munroe has recently published a volume with IVP Academic, Reading Buechner: Exploring the Work of a Master Memoirist, Novelist, Theologian, and Preacher. This is the sort of book that offers a roadmap to a city filled with marvelous attractions. The book is not encyclopedic, but it introduces the reader to the various genres in which Buechner wrote: memoir, novel, theological text, and sermon.

When we read Buechner, we are reading someone who has encountered the God of the Bible and has experienced the beauty of his presence. At points the keen emotions of Buechner’s experience of God comes through even his fiction as he portrays godly sorrow over sin, a deep sense of humility, and the longing for the true, good, and beautiful. Though Buechner handles the text more as a novelist than an exegete, there are times when his flourishes on the meaning of the text help contextualize the biblical narrative in a way that helps the reader step inside the text. When Buechner writes his theology, it is a faith-filled, but provocative theology. Buechner will not always land where a conservative Christian lands, but unlike many progressive Christians, his theology is a theology of faith. Like Wendell Berry, Christians of all stripes can find thoughtful reading, even if we do not agree with the final analysis.

Reading Buechner consists of eleven chapters plus an introduction. Makoto Fukimura, an artist who is a vocal promoter of “care culture” wrote a lovely foreword. The main content of the volume is divided into four parts. Part One includes four chapters on Buechner’s memoirs. Munroe sets the four volumes in context, explaining how the story of Buechner’s life evolved over the four books, why certain details were included in later but not earlier books, and the way that some of Buechner’s early experience appear to shape his telling of his own life.

Part Two delves into two of Buechner’s novels. First is Godric, which is said to be Buechner’s best work. The second is The Son of Laughter, another of Buechner’s best works. Munroe deals with some of Buechner’s other novels throughout these two chapters, but Reading Buechner is an introduction that points the reader to the place to start to get the sense of Buechner’s work before going into many of the other works. In Part Three, Munroe shifts to an exploration of Buechner’s theology. Here it becomes apparent why Buechner can be so helpful: His theology was largely written to help non-Christians, especially skeptics and Christians disaffected by the clinical theology that often comes from the pens of scholars. Buechner’s theology takes his audience seriously and God seriously, but he does not take himself particularly seriously. He is, imperfectly, attempting to do what Lewis and Sayers recommend in translating theology into the vernacular.

In Part Four we get two chapters on Buechner’s preaching. His sermons are not strictly textual, though Buechner does include discussion of texts in faithful terms, but they are masterpieces in rhetoric and expression. The chief benefit of reading Buechner’s sermons is not as a foundation for a young preacher to build his sermonic style, but as illustrations of the power of language that should be a more regular consideration for preachers of all stripes. Munroe is careful to point out, as well, that though Buechner is ordained, he is not a regular member of a congregation, which should flavor our reading of his preaching. These are occasional sermons, not samples of the weekly grind most pastors endure, and are written as an informed outsider, not someone deeply embedded in the work of the body of Christ. The book concludes with a chapter that calls us to read Buechner for the joy that bubbles up from deep beneath the surface. Munroe then adds a personal epilogue about his limited personal relationship with Buechner. Invaluably, at the end of the volume, we get an annotated bibliography of Buechner’s work.

Munroe’s book reads well. It is informative, concise, and clear. Though it is not comprehensive, this is the sort of survey that can provide and entry point into an important writer who is off the beaten path for many Christians. Munroe is correct that more Christians should read Buechner, especially those who wrestle with words and those who are trying to translate Christian doctrine to an unbelieving world. Buechner’s imaginative language is helpful and exemplary. Also, as Munroe reminds readers repeatedly, Buechner came to faith voluntarily and later in life, which helps explain the authenticity of his faith, despite patches of non-conformity with orthodoxy. Buechner is thus not a lode star for faithful Christianity, but a companion along the way. Munroe’s book helps illustrate this. Additionally, those new to Buechner or those who have read some should appreciate the work done in Reading Buechner to provide entry points and context that will make reading Buechner a more rewarding experience.

Reading Buechner: Exploring the Work of a Master Memoirist, Novelist, Theologian, and Preacher

By Munroe, Jeffrey

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this work from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

To Think Christianly - A Review

One of the challenges for Christians in modernity has been trying to integrate faith will all areas on knowledge. Some fundamentalists attempted this by simply abandoning the public square and retreating into their own corners of the world with independent publishing, music, and entertainment that mimic the world, usually at a lower level of quality, but maintain ideological purity. Some revisionists simply accept what the world produces, call it good or attempt to relate Christian themes to the very non-Christian content and argue that everything is permissible. A third response has been to attempt to engage the culture and its artifacts from a meaningfully Christian perspective and highlight the ways that the world’s wisdom is consistent with Christianity and the points of difference.

All three of these methods of relating to the world around us can be witnessed within Christian education. Christians invented the university, in part because of the Bible’s message that all of creation speaks God’s name. Thus, all of creation should be understood in unity—a uni-versity. But as modernism undermined the place of God in creation—often denying any role through deism and later his very existence through atheism—those naturalistic ideas have largely taken over the educational spaces of the world. This left many Christians without a place to stand to think Christianly.

One response to the crisis of education was to create separate Christian universities. Those take several forms, with varying degrees of openness to broader scholarship. The Christian College movement has both strengths and weakness. It rises above its worst instantiations of institutions like Oberlin, which no longer reflect their Christian heritage in any way, or some fundamentalist institutions which are notorious for tight control of messaging.

Another response to the crisis of education, however, was the creation of parachurch institutions that often ran parallel to other educational institutions with the express goal of helping Christians think about all of life from a distinctly Christian perspective. Charles Cotherman’s recent book, To Think Christianly: A History of L’Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement, presents an engaging account of how that parallel movement rose and has flourished.

L’Abri, of course, was the home of Francis and Edith Schaeffer in the Swiss Alps. They founded “The Shelter” as a place to ask hard questions and provide answers from an orthodox Christian perspective. That faith community grew over a period of years, primarily through word of mouth, until it became a pilgrimage for seekers, skeptics, and Christians seeking to find how to live out their faith. The Schaeffers provided hospitality for many, the gospel for all, and a safe place to seek answers in God’s world. L’Abri was a first of its kind community, which is why Thinking Christianly considers that project in the first chapter.

Chapter Two moves to a history of Regent College, which came chronologically after L’Abri and shared some themes, but was intended to bring a Christian element to other non-ministerial degrees. Cotherman details the origins of Regent College as an affiliate institution to a Canadian university. James Houston was the founder of Regent College and, indeed a significant figure within the Christian Study Center movement, which this book discusses. The informal L’Abri model of lay-training and the more formal Regent College model remain the two major options for bringing theological teaching to a broad audience.

In Chapters Three through Six Cotherman looks at four particularly Christian Study centers that tried to replicate either L’Abri or Regent College. The C. S. Lewis Institute  was originally an attempt to found a Regent like institution, but shifted to a more informal study center that exists and continues to attempt to help working professionals in multiple large metro areas integrate their faith, work and life. The Ligonier study center was very L’Abri-like when it was founded by R. C. Sproul in Western Pennsylvania. It was small, residential, and community oriented. However, the shift from audio tapes to videos drew Ligonier to shift its model, move to Florida, and focus less on community-based instruction. In California, an attempt was made to provide some discipleship in a study-center in Northern California. The center still exists near the University of California Berkeley as a Center of Distinction of the Graduate Theological Union, which has continued its existence but allowed it to chart a different path than the first two centers. Similarly, the Center for Christian Study near the University of Virginia functions to help seekers understand Christianity and Christians to integrate their studies with their Christianity. Each of these four centers looks different, but each is attempting to show how faith is consistent with and can strengthen studies in another area.

The final chapter deals with the Consortium of Christian Study Centers, which exists to encourage entities like the six discussed in the book to start, maintain, and grow. Spawned out of the same movement, this is an attempt to bring discipleship to many people who might otherwise struggle to find meaningful Christian engagement with their lives.

As storm clouds continue to gather over accreditation of orthodox Christian institutions, especially those who seek to embody biblical Christian sexuality, Christian study centers may be an attractive option for future students. Some are residential, but many are simply physically located near a campus, allowing students access to resources and fellowship that can help put the pieces together in the fractured intellectual environment of the modern university. Christian study centers have the potential of helping to develop a Christian mind. While distinctly Christian institutions of higher education have a place and should continue to exist, even when social forces disbar them from accreditation, Christian study centers may be a way to help build disciples for future generations of nurses, doctors, engineers, and teachers in a cost-effective and deeply integrated manner.

For those interested in the life of the mind, the history of L’Abri and similar institutions, and parallel educational opportunities to universities, this is a very interesting volume. It is well researched, engaging and thorough. The book focuses excessively on whether or not institutions have promoted egalitarianism of ministerial function, which seems strange given the focus is not on ministry within the church but ministry in the world. Overall, the level of interest in this niche topic seems excessive, but does overly distract from an otherwise solid book. The beginning of the book is also much more interesting than the latter portion, as the emphasis on successor organizations that many people have never heard of seems both highly selective and, at times, too far into the weeds. That fact, which might discourage general readers somewhat, is likely to increase the academic value of this book that deals carefully with the history of institutions slightly off the beaten path.

Overall, this is a useful volume, particularly for those thinking into the future about ways to help bring unity to the cacophony of the modern university. As institutions grow increasingly hostile to Christian student organizations, an independent study center may be a strong path forward for both evangelism and discipleship.

To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement

By Cotherman, Charles E.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

"He Descended to the Dead" - A Review

For many Christians, the three ecumenical creeds define the kernel of orthodox belief. The first time I encountered the Apostle’s Creed was one of my first Sundays at the Naval Academy. When we read that the clause, “He descended into hell,” caught my attention. Given the number of other things that were wrong with the service (it was being run by a very progressive chaplain of some semi-orthodox variety), that was the thing that led me to stop going to chapel.

Looking back, I don’t regret not sitting through the milk toast services in the chapel (though the organist later became a friend and, as it turns out, is a phenomenal human being), but that clause should not have been the radical point of theological departure that it became for me.

First, it appears that “he descended to the dead” is a better text and translation than “he descended into hell.” Second, it turns out that the Apostle’s Creed is extremely helpful at centering (though not exclusively defining) orthodoxy. Third, Christ’s descent to the dead is much more important that I supposed as an 18-year-old fundamentalist Baptist.

Over the years of seminary education, broader reading, and interaction with other Christian traditions, I came to see the value of the Apostle’s Creed. Michael Bird’s excellent volume, What Christians Ought to Believe, uses the Apostle’s Creed as a backbone for basic Christian instruction, which has been helpful in discipling my children.

I still didn’t really have a firm grasp on the descent clause until I read Matthew Emerson’s book, “He Descended to the Dead”: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday. In one fairly concise volume, Emerson has laid out most of the major arguments and presents a convincing case that not only should Evangelical Christians accept the descent clause, but that our theologies will be deficient if we do not.

The book is divided into three unequal parts. In Part One, Emerson makes the case for the descent clause. He engages with the major arguments over the proper wording (he moves us a way from Christ descending to hell) and affirms that this is a clause that has central importance to the Christian faith. The Apostle’s Creed is an extra-biblical text, but it is a faithful summary of what Scripture teaches, so Emerson carefully combs through the Bible to show that Christ ministering to the spirits in the lower reaches of the earth is, in fact, his descent to the dead. This does not involve the “harrowing of hell,” which some theologians have argued as support for universal salvation, but it does point to Christ’s Spirit descending to the place of the righteous dead while his body lay in the grave. For pastors and amateur theologians trying to place the descent clause in the Christian tradition, this is the essential reading.

Part Two is much longer, very thorough, and systematic. In six chapters Emerson discusses the importance of the descent clause to classic Trinitarian theology, the doctrine of creation, salvation, ecclesiology, eschatology, and Christological anthropology. This is an important section, which demonstrates how deeply important the theological concept is to a thick orthodoxy. This is also a very thorough section, so casual readers may find it helpful to read more quickly. The book concludes in Part Three, where Emerson meditates on some of the practical applications of the Christian life in a single chapter.

The first three chapters are worth the price of the book and are accessible to reasonably informed lay people. The six chapters of Part Two are more technical and denser, but worthwhile for those aspiring to grow in their theological understanding. The last chapter is a helpful meditation to bring things home.

This is the work of several years for Emerson. He carefully researched what has been a fairly hotly debated theological idea, which has fallen out of favor among many Evangelicals. This is a paradigm-shifting book that, because of the care in the research, covers most of the debates of any size and honestly represents the various perspectives on the passage. “He Descended to the Dead” is a masterpiece of contemporary theology. It well warranted the award from The Gospel Coalition for Academic Theology Book of the Year in 2019.

This is a volume that is likely to get less attention than it deserves because it tackles a topic that is far from the center of most people’s contemporary concerns about theological debates. And yet, it is a good example of theological retrieval, so it provides an example of how theology ought to be done as we read through the centuries of Christian thinkers. An excellent book that I highly recommend. This should shape the course of the debate on the descent clause for the next generation of Evangelicals.

"He Descended to the Dead": An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday

By Emerson, Matthew Y.

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NOTE: The publisher provided me a copy of this volume gratis with no expectation of a positive review.