A Company of Heroes - A Review

In the week to week grind, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture and to forget that there are bigger things than the overdue report, looming deadline, or potential future promotion. There is a kingdom being illuminated by salt of the earth servants of the one true God who will return someday to restore the whole creation and shine his glory through the whole world. It’s easy to forget that grand reality because the inane, normal, and immanent demands blot out the grandeur of God’s ineffable splendor through the tyranny of the urgent.

Tim Keesee’s book, A Company of Heroes is a reminder that that the kingdom is coming, that the daily grind can have great meaning, and that God is on the move throughout the world. Keesee’s 2014 book, Dispatches from the Front emphasized the work being done in frontline locations throughout the world. It contains snippets that will encourage and it is worth picking up for its own goodness. When I picked up the 2019 book, A Company of Heroes, I expected more of the same. This book, however, is different. And because it is different it is in a way much more powerful and encouraging. While Dispatches from the Front focused on what God is doing in hard places, A Company of Heroes emphasizes what God is doing through ordinary people in both exceptionally difficult circumstances and simply through persistent faithfulness by his people in “ordinary” places.

The book covers the ministries of twenty people. It’s a mix of the living and the dead, the great and the small, those serving in critical ministries and those faithful in banal ones. For example, there is a chapter on Samuel Zwemer who gave his life on mission in the Middle East around a century ago. There is another chapter on Danny Brooks, whose name you likely have never heard, but who heeded the call of God, moved his family, and planted a church in Salt Lake City Utah. The end of his story is unknown, but his family is part of a pattern of sacrificial living that demonstrates the overwhelming value of the glory of God.

There are other stories that encourage deep obedience to the call of Christ. There are reminders throughout, as John Piper is quoted in the book saying, “America isn’t a safe place for children, if going to hell is your biggest concern.” Physical safety may not be the key criteria by which we should evaluate our opportunities in life. As we take up our cross and follow Christ, we may literally die and that may be exactly the right thing for us. This book does not offer a secret recipe for being more on fire for Christ, but it does provide repeated examples of living all out for the kingdom of God.

We need more books like this. Books that show simple faithfulness of the common person. We need books that tell stories in snippets that can be digested that take missions, service, and living in hard places from extraordinary tales to ordinary realities.

A Company of Heroes is the sort of volume that should be in many Christian homes, read aloud by families, included in homeschool curricula, on the shelves at church, and wherever people that need to learn to live faithfully can get access to it. May Tim Keesee’s tribe increase, as well the tribe of people like those whose stories he captures.

10 Significant Books from 2021

It was a good, if different reading year. I read and reviewed many fewer books this year than in any past year. In large part this due to reading for a book that I am writing and trying to write said book, which is not going as fast as I would like. Also, the pace at work seems to get increasingly faster and consume more and more of my free mental space, which makes it much easier to pick up something light and fluffy or find a movie to watch than to work through some excellent, but challenging Christian non-fiction.

In any case, my apologies for flagging aside, my deeper apologies go to a number of books that my friends have obviously appreciated, but which I am unable to commend simply because I didn’t have time or energy to read them.

However, here is my imperfect list of good books I encountered in 2021 that I would commend to you for future reading. They are in no particular order.

You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World by Alan Noble

“This is a book I would recommend for people of every age, but especially for those about to be sent out into the world. Noble teaches undergraduates, so it has the marks of many conversations had behind an office door, with students who came for help with an essay, but needed assistance in putting life together. Would that many more young Christians would discover the central message of this volume before heading out into the world, making shipwreck of their health, their life, and perhaps their faith in attempt to become someone, do something, and belong to themselves in an inhuman world.”

The Glory Now Revealed: What We’ll Discover About God in Heaven by Andrew M. Davis

“If asked where to learn about heaven, this is the resource I will point people toward. It is clear, simple, and Christ-honoring. More importantly, the book minimizes speculation by focusing on what can be understood from Scripture plainly read. This is the sort of book that draws the reader’s mind beyond the pages themselves to the hope that the author is pointing toward. It is a hopeful book, which offers a healthy dose of encouragement in a world that seems to be bent on wearing us down and keeping our minds of the life to come. The Glory Now Revealed is the sort of book that helps us become more like Christ by imagining more vividly what our future life in the presence of the visible Christ will be like in heaven.”

Ethics as Worship: The Pursuit of Moral Discipleship by Mark Leiderbach and Evan Lenow

“Ethics as worship means that the Christian worldview is the beginning of the moral quest. The foundation of the Christian worldview is properly Scripture, which anchors the method and content in the reveal Word of God. But a purely “scriptural” ethic can lead to casuistry. After all, Scripture does not say that we cannot use cocaine or tell us precisely what to do about global warming. An alternative, which includes various forms of philosophical ethics attempts to get at truth apart from Scripture and then looks for passages that can illustrate. Still other forms of so-called Christian ethics are more like weather gauges that check the cultural climate and decide write and wrong to try to maintain respectability. Viewing ethics as worship puts God at the center, with Scripture as the foundation, and delight in God and holiness as primary signs of success.”

Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures by Matthew Mullins

‘This book is an academic text. The best audience will be those familiar with the basics of literary theory or hermeneutics. Enjoying the Bible would make an excellent text for a “Bible as literature” course at the undergraduate level or as a source of encouragement for English majors in universities trying to reconcile the value of a literary approach to the Bible with its spiritual authority. This is a volume that can serve to encourage the weary seminary student or studious pastor whose need to produce a paper or sermon sometimes stifles a thoroughgoing delight in Scripture. This is a good book that will help many faithful, orthodox believers grow in their love of God and his Word.’

The End of Our Exploring: A book about Questioning and the Confidence of Faith by Matthew Lee Anderson

“As a parent of children who “know all the answers” because we have spent a lot of time on discipleship, I find Anderson’s faithful but open approach to questioning helpful. This is a book that I will have my children read toward the end of high school. Sometimes it is frightening that my kids have the ready answers to theological questions. I worry that they have borrowed my authority, as it were, because they have seen me teach through an abbreviated systematic theology, several books of the Bible, and other topical lessons. They know that I have read the books and explored the questions, but it is important that they do some of their own exploring, too.”

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading: A Quest for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful by Leland Ryken and Glenda Mathes

“The self-description of the book is apt. The authors write, “[This is] a guidebook by two season and enthusiastic reading travelers, who show all readers . . . how to discover more delight in the reading journey.” This is not an academic volume, though it has academic value. It is not a prescriptive “how to” like Adler’s book. It is filled with instruction, but it is not purely didactic. It’s the sort of book that can be read piecemeal as someone tries to grow in the art of reading. It’s also the sort of book that can be used as a textbook in a high school or introductory college literature class. It would also be useful as a companion to a reading group. Most significantly, it’s a book that will help its reader grow in their love of the better things in life.”

 

Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity by Alisa Childers

“In response to the redefinitions and abandonment of the ancient Christian faith by progressive Christians, Childers points people toward “historic Christianity.” She doesn’t perfectly define this term either, but she describes it as a faith “deeply rooted in history. In fact, it is the only religious system I can think of that depends on a historical event (the resurrection of Jesus) being real—not fake—news.” She goes on to summarize her faith as understanding that, “The Bible is [God’s] Word, or it’s not. Jesus was raised from the dead, or he wasn’t. Christianity is true, or it isn’t. There is no ‘my truth’ when it comes to God.” What she defends through the book is the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints,” with the truthfulness of Scripture at the core and the necessary conclusions drawn from that about the nature of God, the importance of the cross, and the goodness of pursuing holiness as it is described in Scripture.”

 

Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into Reading the News by Jeffrey Bilbro

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.

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman

This is the only one of the books which I have not reviewed this year. Actually, I did review it, but due to a tragic failure of autosave, my lovely review was lost and I have not recreated it yet. I will provide a mini-review here.

Trueman’s book is one of the most important books of the year and likely will remain significant for years to come. Rise and Triumph digs into the reality-denying world of identity confusion that surrounds us. How have we come to a place where a statement like, “I am a man trapped in a woman’s body,” is considered meaningful? “Gender Identity” wasn’t really a recognized term when the infamous Obergefell case redefined so much of reality. Trueman walks through the stages of modern philosophy and culture that have allowed that sweeping change to be made so quickly and so readily absorbed. The books moves from Rousseau, through the Romantic Poets, Nietzche, Marx, and Darwin, the into Freud, with Marcuse and some other contemporaries thrown in. It’s obvious Trueman has done his homework, though his reading may not agree with the most generous interpreters of those works. Rise and Triumph has explanatory power. The really good news is that a more accessible version is being published by Crossway in 2022.

 

Dispatches from the Front: Soties of Gospel Advance in the World’s Difficult Places by Tim Keesee

Each of these dispatches—quick vignettes of the gospel bearing fruit and increasing—reminds readers that we have a supernatural God who works in mighty ways to accomplish his vital work in the world. For the pastor weighed down by the constant bickering about pandemic protocols, selfishness of congregations, and mundane arrangements of life in the US, this book offers a vitamin shot of encouragement about the way God can work in hard places. For the average Christian whose vision of the faith is limited to a service that can be squeezed in between travel league games and vacations, this will reveal Christian faith that energizes all of life.

 

10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask (and Answer) about Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin

The usefulness of this book is that McLaughlin has transposed important apologetic arguments from the halls of the atheist/Christian debates and put it in language and terms that are absorbable for the average teen. McLaughlin uses illustrations from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and a variety of Disney animated movies. She does this as someone who has obviously watched and enjoyed them, so they don’t come across as misplaced tinsel, but actually support the content of the book. This is a book that reads well without sacrificing the quality of the arguments.

How to Think Like Shakespeare - A Review

The list of books I have purchased because of Ken Myers and his Mars Hill Audio Journal continues to grow. Though subscriptions to the journal run about $30, regular listeners are likely to find the actual cost of the journal and the free, weekly Friday Features much greater because Myers has the gift of bibliography. He also brings such interesting people in for interviews or reads such enthralling essays that curious minds will find it difficult not to want to follow where he leads. For those without robust university libraries nearby, the cost of following those intellectual breadcrumbs can rise as online orders and regular deliveries from the postman serve to dish up fuel for the mind.

One recent book that I purchased because of Ken Myers is How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education. The author, Scott Newstok is a professor of English at Rhodes College. He has previously published on both Shakespeare and renaissance education. In this volume, published with Princeton University Press, Newstok brings those ideas together.

How to Think Like Shakespeare sounds like a “how to” manual. Thankfully, it is not, though that might annoy some who pick up the volume thinking it will provide “10 easy steps to better writing” or whatever.

In an interview with Myers, Newstok related that one of the driving forces behind his writing the book was a rejection of the education-industrial complex. His daughter, enrolled in a public school, came home muttering about “assessment,” which is code for “high stakes testing to justify money spent on novel methods with unproven results which may not have a valid goal in mind.” The problem with assessment is that it pushes toward educating in measurable information without necessarily considering whether the end goal is right and proper. What could have turned into a manifesto is framed much more positively, though, as Newstok provides a framework for considerations for the Renaissance Mind.

The purpose of this book is to help reframe the goal of education around more human considerations. Newstok writes:

My conviction is that education must be about thinking––not training a set of specific skills. . . . Education isn’t merely accumulating data; machines can memorize far more, and far less fallibly, than humans.

The best way to learn about thinking is not to hire a neuroscientist to measure the electrical activity in the brain, but to watch how others have thought before. Since we do not have a time machine to travel back to meet Shakespeare or other thinkers who lived before our technology-saturated age, we must consider what they have written and follow the trails they have followed.

How to Think About Shakespeare takes an intriguing approach. In a world that prizes originality, the book is comprised largely of quotes and tight allusions. Newstok is fastidious in his annotation, so this is no plagiarist’s volume. However, what is illustrated is the great degree that we are dependent upon those that have come before us. In many cases, they have already thought better with clearer language about the things that we consider imponderable.

The book has fourteen chapters, which all deal with particular issues relevant to human thinking and our contemporary culture. For example, Newstok begins with “Of Thinking,” which is appropriate considering the title of the volume. The upshot being that the lament “why can’t people think” is not a new problem driven by smart phones (though perhaps accelerated), but one that spans the intellectual history of the world. The conclusion we might draw from that is that it may be better to see how the problem has been overcome in the past and model our solutions off of that, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. Newstok then moves on to discuss ends, craft, fit, place, attention, and more. All the topics serve to outline aspects of human thought in a humane world. Each of the chapters is brief—usually about a dozen pages, which keeps the pace quick while providing some material for future consideration.

How to Think Like Shakespeare is not so much earthshattering as paradigm disrupting. It’s hard to define, really, but this is book that caused me to think and is still nagging at me to continue thinking. Mostly, it’s driving me to continue to explore what it means to be human and to think as a human in a computerized world. Newstok’s brief chapters highlight the ways that we have been habituated to a technological society. He doesn’t provide a lot of clear answers, but he raises some of the more significant questions that we should be asking and which humanity has previously asked. This is the sort of book that I read and have dipped into several times as I’ve mulled its contents since then. The book is one that that will stick with you at the edge of your mind and encourage dabbling.

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.

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

Another Life is Possible - A Review

There is nowhere to run and hide from modernity, it seems. Even if you homeschool your children, screen the books you let into the house, keep them from radio, and unplug the TV, you still have to contend with conversations with other kids at church or in the neighborhood whose parents have not screened out the influences of the world. This was much of Rod Dreher’s complaint in The Benedict Option. More positively, it’s nearly impossible to find a community filled with people focused on rebuilding a culture from the wreckage of modernity, so to speak.

The Bruderhof communities, which are scattered through seven countries across the globe, are examples of people gathering around the common of aim of trying to live rightly in this life. Members give up property rights, commit to contributing to the common good with their labor, and give themselves to mutual aid in a life that is both civilly and religiously united on pursuing goodness and quiet in the midst of an increasingly busy world. The 2020 book, Another Life is Possible, tells their story in pictures and words.

The book itself is a beautiful, large format volume with glossy, full color pages. The pages are filled with brief accounts of the lives of many current and former residents of the various Bruderhof communities. It tells stories of those who came late in life to the community, looking for peace in the midst of life’s storms. It offers accounts of people who were raised within the community, were sent out to learn a trade, and came back to live the common life. It highlights the industries and efforts of the community to bear each other’s burdens and put food on the table. The accounts are often beautiful and reveal a lot of wonder and goodness in human community.

Though the volume is not primarily theological, the anabaptistic roots of the Bruderhof movement are clear. They eschew military service, seek withdrawal from political engagement, and focus on simplicity in attire—especially for women. The world transformation referenced within the volume is always organic and human-scaled, rather than political and grandiose. The emphasis of the book is on the common life, rather than the theology that must give form to that way of living. In fact, even the section on finding faith has little in the way of the content of that faith—it seems to point simply to the centrality of Christ, not the substance of who he is.

There is much to be praised in the book and the way of life it advertises. There is a comfort and homeliness apparent, which is enough to make the world-weary heart long to emulate it. Though each individual is poor, having chosen to live in community and maintain a common purse, there is great wealth in knowing that no individual or family stands alone. This solidarity comes through especially in the section about healthcare. In a world where rising costs and insurance premiums consume a great deal of income, there is security in knowing there are many who will stand with you and support you in your need.

Within the volume, however, there are signs of the inroads of modernity, despite their efforts at insulation. For example, due to the emphasis on cooperative labor of all parties, the Bruderhof have a daycare system for their preschoolers. Both parents are apparently working, so the three-year-olds have a caretaker in one of the stories. It is a friendly daycare and one that affirms the values of the families, but it provides evidence that even in a closed, supposedly pre-modern community, the drive to have both parents occupied outside the home can cause youngsters to be segregated from their families before normal school age. There are also accounts on the edge of the stories of individuals and families that have left the Bruderhof community, apparently finding the way of life less desirable than other opportunities. It is impossible to hide from the world, even in a community that seems designed to do so.

For those who find themselves unable to align fully with the Bruderhof theology, there is a still a great deal of help in this volume. The book does not offer a roadmap or instructions to building an intentional community, but it does illuminate an opportunity. As the title claims, Another Life is Possible. Although we cannot build our own Brigadoon and wake for only a day in the Scottish hills, attempting to maintain our idyllic perfection in perpetuity, there are ways that Christian communities can become more holistic and healthier. Few are likely to build a compound, take a vow of poverty, and break out the headscarves. However, the sharing, mutual aid, and companionship provide a vision that offers hope. In a culture that decimates friendship, there can be true companionship. The possibility exists. That is a hopeful contribution.

Another Life is Possible is the sort of volume that is better dabbled in and waded through than read cover to cover. I found myself picking up the volume for a few minutes each evening and sampling from various sections. It makes a good break from other forms of entertainment and really is encouraging in many ways. As we think through how best to live as humans in a dehumanizing culture, Another Life is Possible provides some glimpses that can inform our imagination and open up new possibilities for consideration.

You Are Not Your Own - A Review

Sometimes the world is too much for us. Especially when we believe that we are our own people, destined to make our way in the world alone. Perhaps we are stardust, but as the dust of celestial bodies we have a lot to live up to. The pressure to become something and to be someone can eat our souls and sap our energy. It is this feeling that has caused many adults to burnout only a decade or so into their adulthood.

But what if we do not actually belong to ourselves?

What if we are not our own, but we belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to a faithful savior, Jesus Christ? What if he has fully paid for all our sins with his precious blood?

In fact, he has, which is what the Heidelberg Catechism reminds us of in Question 1. It is also what Alan Noble has sought to remind the world of in his latest book, You are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World.

This is Noble’s second book. His previous volume, Disruptive Witness, is a call to resist the consumeristic pressures of the world and, as Christians, to live redemptively in such a way as to witness to the goodness of God and disrupt the common pattern of the world. For those wondering how to live differently in a world that won’t leave us alone, that book is a great place to start.

But even being a disruptive witness can be exhausting if we see our identity as wrapped up in that effort. If we feel we must earn favor with God by seeking to live just right in this world and make something of ourselves for Jesus, that too will wear us down and leave us bent, bleary eyed, and hopeless. We can never be enough.

One of the first things that Noble does in this book is to establish the fact that the world is not made for humans. This is why we are so uncomfortable. It’s not that we are failures, it’s that society is structured in a way that fights against human flourishing. Everything in the world tells us that we are atomized individuals, adrift in a sea of stars. We are the captains of our souls. But, as Noble points out, we are actually more like animals in the zoo. No matter how hard the zookeepers and veterinarians try, they can never truly mimic the jungle for the tiger or the savannah for the lion. The zoo is made for the humans, not for the animals.

As a result of the inhumanity of the world we seek various ways to cope. For some it is illegal drugs or excessive alcohol. For others the solution is sought in online relationships, video games, or prescription anti-depressants. An increasing number of people seek fulfillment in sexual fantasies made possible in every variety through free, always accessible pornography. Many of these forms of self-medication are not wrong in and of themselves—though some of them clearly are—but they all tend to either treat the symptom without seeking a cure or simply make the problem worse.

However, Noble reminds the reader that we are not our own and that we belong to Christ. This is our only comfort in life and death. These are theological truths that are robustly biblical, but also tested by time. They come from an era before our own, with different trials and temptations, to bear witness to the goodness of Christ in all situations.

The book does not resolve with easy solutions. The last chapter opens up with what seems a somewhat dire statement, “Life is hard and death is terrifying.” Thanks. I think.

But Noble continues to trudge toward a better solution, “The only people who don’t recognize the need for comfort as we go through life and face death are those who have so effectively numbed themselves that they no longer recognize their numbness as a form of comfort.” So it is a good thing that the sense of alienation and longing remains with us. We are not yet beyond hope.

And then the book moves to close by assuring readers that there is no simple solution that will make everything better. There is no secret key that will unlock a human shaped culture within the alienation of modernity. Rather, there is hope to be found in Christ: “Only in Christ can we find a belonging without violence or abuse, a belonging that grounds and fulfills our personhood rather than effacing it. . . . We find comfort in belonging to Christ because Christ is the only one we can belong to without harm or loss of our humanity.” That is a powerful answer.

You are Not Your Own is an example of the sort of synthetic work that needs to continue to be done. As Noble readily admits, there is nothing novel in what he writes. But he does not need to be novel. He simply needs to convey an intelligible message to those who need to hear it and be shaped by it. And he does that.

I read this book in one sitting on a plane. It washed over me like a flood of assurance and comfort. I belong to Christ. My feelings of failure and inadequacy belong to the world and not to me. Noble is right about his diagnosis of the problem and right about the solution. We need to find our belonging in Christ—the creator of everything—in this inhuman world.

This is a book I would recommend for people of every age, but especially for those about to be sent out into the world. Noble teaches undergraduates, so it has the marks of many conversations had behind an office door, with students who came for help with an essay, but needed assistance in putting life together. Would that many more young Christians would discover the central message of this volume before heading out into the world, making shipwreck of their health, their life, and perhaps their faith in attempt to become someone, do something, and belong to themselves in an inhuman world.

NOTE: I was given a free copy of this volume, in part because I provided feedback on an earlier draft of the volume. However, a positive review was not guaranteed.

The Glory Now Revealed - A Review

There remains, for some, a powerful argument that looking forward to heaven will inevitably lead to a diminished effectiveness in this life. Some critics fear a Christian can be so heavenly minded they are no earthly good. However, C. S. Lewis argues exactly the opposite in Mere Christianity:

“Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christian who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.”

And yet, we think of heaven so little because we talk about it so little. One reason that we talk about heaven so little is because we have such a poor conception of it. On the one hand, there are gnostic errors that present heaven as a place where we will exist in a disembodied state playing harps while sitting on clouds. On another hand, more robust, more biblical understandings, present a vision of Christians in real, physical bodies but simply engaged in a perpetual worship service, perhaps repeating the verse of one of those 90’s praise choruses that seemed to go on forever. It would be enough to be in the presence of God in a redeemed body singing “I Can Sing of Your Love Forever” on repeat. But what if heaven is actually even better than that?

Andy Davis’ book, The Glory Now Revealed: What We’ll Discover About God in Heaven, explores the data of Scripture to gain a better vision of what the future holds for those who are in Christ. Davis states his purpose for the book clearly: “It is my deepest desire that this journey will energize your heart as never before to yearn for heaven, to store up treasure in heaven, and to rescue as many people as possible to join you in heaven.”

The Glory Now Revealed is a very accessible book, written with a preacher’s heart and gift for turning a phrase. The book consists of fifteen relatively short chapters. Davis begins by laying out his vision of an eternal existence in the presence of God where we remember the events of this life and continue to learn more about the glory of God through the lives of other. He then works through Scripture to prove his case, first showing that heavenly memories of our earthly lives will exist, then that our redeemed, transformed bodies and minds will delight in learning of God’s eternal glory forever. The book explores the idea of how knowledge will be communicated, the wonder of heavenly rewards, the nature of human history in comparison with the eternity before us, a sample of some “great figures” in Church History we will learn more of, as well as a discussion of some of those “unknown” people whose stories will illuminate God’s glory in eternity. Davis discusses how we will understand the spiritual dimension of our present lives in that future state, and a fuller knowledge of what God was doing in the daily grind of our earthly existence. Drawing toward the end, the book shifts to discussions of how memories of our sin, our sufferings, the lost ones we will not see, and the evils that have existed throughout history will all contribute to the growth in our delight in God’s goodness in heaven. The book concludes with an exhortation to seek heavenly glory through faithful works in this life.

Davis is thoroughly saturated with Scripture, so it comes as no surprise to find the web of interlacing references throughout the volume. Most of the extrabiblical citations are illustrative. This is not a history of the theology of heaven, so there is only a moderate interaction with theological accounts of heaven from Church History, but that is consistent with Davis’ intent. He is trying to present a vision––shaped and filled by Scripture––of what heaven is. The hope is that vision will inspire the reader to yearn more fully for heaven and lean into it by pursuing righteousness in this life.

If asked where to learn about heaven, this is the resource I will point people toward. It is clear, simple, and Christ-honoring. More importantly, the book minimizes speculation by focusing on what can be understood from Scripture plainly read. This is the sort of book that draws the reader’s mind beyond the pages themselves to the hope that the author is pointing toward. It is a hopeful book, which offers a healthy dose of encouragement in a world that seems to be bent on wearing us down and keeping our minds of the life to come. The Glory Now Revealed is the sort of book that helps us become more like Christ by imagining more vividly what our future life in the presence of the visible Christ will be like in heaven.

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

Living on the Edge - A Review

There is plenty that is not right in America right now. Political divisions are leading to violence and hatred among people with opposing views. The middle class is shrinking as more people move into upper tiers of income, leaving some members of society behind. Debates about race rage on, with insults hurled on every side, and little hope of resolution. There is a lack of respect for the struggling class and sometimes sheer hatred for those that have done better financially.

Sociologist Celine-Marie Pascale attempts to find the solution to these problems and present them in her book, Living on the Edge: When Hard Times Become a Way of Life.

There are several underlying premises in the book that shape her results. First, she believes that the economy is a fixed size, so that when some people have more it necessarily comes at the expense of those who have less. (xii) This, of course, sets the course for the necessary solution. The chief problem she finds is not access to economic on-ramps but distribution of resources. Second, that the existence of poverty “has not happened by accident,” but “It is the result of decades of collusion between business and government to maximize corporate profits at the expense of workers.” (x) As a result, as the author describes her project, “Ultimately, it is a book about power that has been leveraged by government and corporations at the expense of ordinary people.” (xi)

The book is a mix of quantitative analysis and personal interviews. It is to Pascale’s credit that she traveled to Appalachia and other economically disadvantaged areas to actually meet people and find out how they lived.  Along the way, Pascale uncovers a number of unfortunate structural problems in society. For example, as she notes, “in many communities it is impossible to hold a job if you don’t own a car.” (1) This, of course, puts those on the hairy edge of subsistence in constant jeopardy, because a deer crossing the road, a bad transmission, or a careless driver can jeopardize employment and financial stability. Pascale also attempts to discuss the issue of class prejudice, which is an often-neglected element in these discussions. But it is apparent to many on the bottom end of the economic latter that, whatever the rhetoric, the upper classes despise them. The book is to be commended for recognizing these challenges.

At the same time, Pascale’s attempt to make this a mix on anecdote and analysis ends up undermining her case and displaying her own prejudices against the people she is studying. A few examples:

To take a break from driving, I stop at a shop in a small town in Tennessee. The shop keeper greets me and proudly explains that her store belongs to God. ‘I just mind it for him,’ she says with a great smile. Before I could blink twice, we are in a conversation about faith and I am asking about her relationship to the Bible.

‘The Bible—start to finish—is the word of God.”

‘Old Testament and New?’

‘Yes, word for word.’

I’m a little unsettled by this, but not surprised.

Pascale—a Buddhist—then goes out of her way to ask highly speculative questions about the nature of a soul and then critiques the woman because “she seems less certain and her answers grow vague.” (64)

It’s not the account or making religion a part of the interview that is striking—that is certainly a part of good sociological research—but it is Pascale’s obvious bias. How does someone go into Appalachia with the intent to interview folks and not understand some of the basic beliefs of evangelical Christianity—for example, that the Bible is the word of God? And then to be willing to express that one is “unsettled” by this entirely ordinary belief? And then to follow this with an account of digging into a complex philosophical question about the soul to emphasize that the shop keeper was not was well educated in philosophy as the author seems odd. There is a patronizing tone to many of these anecdotes.

In another personal interjection into the analysis, Pascale records her observations while driving in the South, while driving near the site of several Civil War Battles, along the Blue-Gray Highway. She writes, “Although I don’t see mention of the battles, I count three Confederate flags on this stretch of road – fewer than I has expected. Even so, I find them unnerving. Carried today by white supremacists on their marches, the flag is an emblem of the Confederacy and feels like a warning.” (18)

In the context, this memory serves no purpose in advancing the author’s argument. It seems an honest reflection on her experience along her journey, but it also reflects why Pascale’s work does not result in truly helpful analysis along the methods she has chosen. One need not defend the flying of a Confederate flag to recognize that symbols may convey messages we may not understand and which may not be as nefarious as we would like to portray them. Pascale never explores that possibility or the social dynamics that might drive someone to rebel against the genteel classes by flying the Confederate battle flag considering race.

There are other examples that show Pascale is too disconnected from the people she seeks to help to be properly diagnostic, as when she gets into a tense, racial confrontation with a gas station attendant (who may have been its owner) because she does not understand how to pump her gasoline. (30-31) But toward the end of the confrontation, the man expressed distaste for Trump—his “white president” as she calls him—and frustration at the political class, so she expressed hope that she is “on his side of the fence now.” Unexplored in this account—and likely the really interesting question—is whether the man’s underlying frustration that led to a comment about the blackness of the “former Black president” was driven by poorly considered regulation by the Obama administration. Perhaps it was those regulations that cost the man a great deal of money by forcing him to get new pumps that were likely more complex and expensive than needed. The world will not know, because Pascale inserted herself into the story rather than doing the investigation.

Living on the Edge tackles a worthy topic. There are certainly a large number of people who are in economic strait jackets due to systemic injustices of various sorts. Pascale presents the conspiracy theory that “decades of collusion between business and government” have caused all of the problems of the poor. Her proposal is to expand government social programs, eliminate the Electoral College to increase the power of urban centers over Appalachia, and other proposals borrowed from the talking points from the populist Left. There is nothing innovative about her solutions.

The book ends where it began, which comes as little surprise to those that read the preface. There is little new ground covered—new stories, but very few new nuggets of thoughtful analysis—and mainly an attempt to embolden the already convinced.

Pascale concludes the book with the statement: “Regaining a democracy will mean ending the exploitation of the many by the few. With vision, effort, and some luck, it will be a win for the people of the country. It is past time that ‘liberty and justice for all’ actually means something.” (232)

To the reader who believes there is a significant problem with poverty and stagnation of classes, but who sees different solutions, this book offers very little helpful analysis. It’s hard to take someone seriously who claims to be speaking for a class of people who she so poorly understands and seems to respect so little.

Though Pascale tries to establish her poverty street cred with a brief story about her impoverished childhood (1-2), what comes through in this book is a naturalist trying to study a common species by stopping in their habitat to take a few notes, then rushing back to her office to slip the evidence back into the argument that had already been drawn up. This book reminds me of overhearing some well-dressed youngsters drinking Starbucks drinks discussing how “bougie” someone was for asking them not to break in line at the post office—there is a disconnect between reality and self-perception.

In the end, Pascale fails to explain how granting more centralized control to the entities that she claims are colluding against people helps the people being colluded against. She does not explain why removing political power from more rural states and concentrating it in densely populated areas—the areas that will be best served by concentrated government power—advances representative democracy and serves better the people she will effectively disempower. One may share Pascale’s concerns over “exploitation of the many by the few” and recognize that her solutions would simply make matters worse.

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

Exalting Jesus in Isaiah - A Review

As we recently celebrated the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation, we have also been celebrating the recovery of the authority of Scripture within Christianity. Technology and scholastic influences combined to create a cocktail of circumstances that enabled the spread of Scripture in common languages and an eruption of preaching of the Word of God in the church. To read the history of the early Reformation is to read a love story of Christ’s bride for the Bible.

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That fervent affection for Scripture is alive and well in our day, particularly among those who practice expositional preaching. The Christ-Centered Exposition Series of commentaries from Holman Reference is both the product of and a contributor to the renaissance of expositional preaching. The series also encourages the conviction that all of Scripture tells about Christ: He is anticipated in the Old Testament and more clearly revealed in the New Testament. The whole Bible is a story of redemption, with Christ as the central hero.

The latest volume in this series – Exalting Jesus in Isaiah – is by Andrew M. Davis, pastor of First Baptist Church of Durham, NC. Davis is well-known for his love of Scripture, most clearly demonstrated by his faithful practice of memorizing whole books of the Bible. He has even previously memorized the entire book of Isaiah, which is the subject of this volume. Davis has also recently completed the arduous task of preaching through Isaiah in his local church; those sermons help give shape to this volume.

All of the volumes in this series of commentaries are intended to be preaching commentaries. That is, the authors emphasize the sorts of information that are most helpful to the pastor as he is shaping his sermons. For example, instead of a lengthy introduction about the various theories of scribal interjections and textual composition of Isaiah, Davis jumps right into illustrations, background, and textual outlines that are helpful for giving a congregation a sense of the main point of the text.

Davis wrote this book in approximately sixty short, easy to manage chapters. Each chapter is designed to cover a passage of Scripture that is about the right length for a sermon. Within each chapter, Davis highlights a key verse, provides a textual outline, and then offers commentary according to that outline. This makes it an invaluable resource for someone preparing a series of sequential expository sermons or those preaching a stand-alone sermon from the book of Isaiah. The chapters are self-contained, making it useful for a consecutive preaching through the book or occasional sermons on a particular text.

Although this volume is closely connected to Davis’ own preaching of the book of Isaiah, it is not a collection of his sermons. Davis habitually manuscripts his sermons, and the page total would be much greater had he simply compiled those manuscripts into a single volume. Instead, the reader is given the gift of a distillation of Davis’ careful study of Scripture, with insightful examples and illustrations scattered liberally throughout.

The greatest strength of this volume are the intertextual connections that Davis makes as he outlines the contents of Isaiah. Since he has memorized so much Scripture, his mind is alive with allusions and cross-references in and to books through the entire canon. For example, in his commentary on Isaiah 6, Davis explains how Christians can know that Isaiah’s vision of the glory of God in the throne room of heaven is, in fact, a vision of Christ himself. John 12:41 makes this plain. Other commentaries may make the connection, but Davis shows how that revelation fits into the exegetical flow of a sermon on the passage.

Davis also provides a number of helpful illustrations throughout the volume, which are insightful for sermon preparation, and also reflect Davis’ unique personality. Readers are offered references to Luther, Calvin, Bunyan, and even poets like Robert Frost to illuminate points. Davis, a former engineer, even uses the recycling of metal from the World Trade Center into the keel of an amphibious transport ship, the USS New York, to illustrate how redemption can come through destruction to introduce Isaiah 3-4. Or, perhaps more characteristically, Davis cites a report on port activity to make a connection between the vanity of seeking economic domination and God’s judgement, which helps bring Isaiah 23 into focus for the modern reader. These detailed, fact-based illustrations are useful resources for sermon preparation.

This entire series of commentaries is an excellent tool for pastors. The structure of these volumes makes them easy to use as a reference during sermon preparation. The tone of the volumes is formal, but not stuffy, which makes them accessible to pastors with a wide range of academic preparation. The content has been adequately resourced to be reliable, but does not fall into the trap that some academic commentaries do of engaging with every divergent perspective to the detriment of clarity and flow. These volumes are preaching commentaries as they are meant to be: tools to assist the people on the front lines of exposition as they seek to rightly divide the word of truth.

NOTE: This post was previously published at B&H Academic Blog, which has since been archived due to a change in communication strategy.

Ethics as Worship - A Review

The very first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?”

The simple, but profound answer is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

In other words, the chief end of humankind is to worship God and delight in his goodness. But “to glorify God” or to worship means more than singing songs at the appointed time each week or having a daily quiet time. Rather, as Scripture makes clear, “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col 3:17)

The sum of the life of the Christian should be to give God glory by living rightly unto him. This brings us to the place of ethics in the Christian life. Ethics is about worship—it’s about living rightly on earth according to God’s design and pointing others to his truth in righteousness.

Mark Liederbach and Evan Lenow bring the concept of worship through moral living to the forefront in their recent book, Ethics as Worship: The Pursuit of Moral Discipleship. The volume, which is a hefty tome of about 750 pages, presents the authors’ particular focus on the nature of ethics as well as providing much of the standard fare for an introductory ethics text.

This volume has some similarities to other ethics texts in that is explores particular ethical questions (especially those that are cultural pinch points) after surveying alternative approaches to ethics. This is a book that reflects significant research, taking into account the major voices in ethics in the past few decades, along with relevant technical data on questions like reproductive ethics. The arguments within the book are well-thought out, as they have been honed over combined decades of teaching by both authors.

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The premise of ethics as worship is so basic that it seems obvious when it is introduced. As the authors explain, “Ethics is about God. It is about maximally adoring him and rendering to him all that he is due from all that he has made. And it is about our doing so both individually and corporately.” (xxi)

While this approach to ethics seems like it would go without saying, it is less often said in ethics texts (even those by orthodox, Christian authors) than is warranted. And, even among those purporting to do Christian ethics, there is often a failure to make God’s character and value the summum bonum.

Ethics as worship means that the Christian worldview is the beginning of the moral quest. The foundation of the Christian worldview is properly Scripture, which anchors the method and content in the reveal Word of God. But a purely “scriptural” ethic can lead to casuistry. After all, Scripture does not say that we cannot use cocaine or tell us precisely what to do about global warming. An alternative, which includes various forms of philosophical ethics attempts to get at truth apart from Scripture and then looks for passages that can illustrate. Still other forms of so-called Christian ethics are more like weather gauges that check the cultural climate and decide write and wrong to try to maintain respectability. Viewing ethics as worship puts God at the center, with Scripture as the foundation, and delight in God and holiness as primary signs of success.

Ethics as Worship is a thoroughly theological volume with a reformed outlook. Liederbach and Lenow see the call to worship beginning in the garden of Eden. Building on the somewhat esoteric work of John Sailhamer, they call for a retranslation of Genesis 2:15 as a call for humanity to “worship God and obey his commands” in paradise before the fall. This is a debatable claim, which has little support in common translations, but whether or not their translation option is correct, there is no question that obedience and worship were central to human purpose before sin came into the world. One need not to agree with this emphasis to see the value in the approach Lenow and Liederbach follow. After the fall, the priority of worship and obedience remained, but it was frustrated by the effects of sin. The authors continue to explore how worship is essential through the remaining phases of the universe: fall, redemption, and restoration.

This is a volume that adds to the field of ethics, especially among evangelicals, by effectively summarizing much of the literature of the field and offering a new emphasis for the moral task. It is not wholly foreign, but the emphasis being on worship rather than righteousness—the process of decision rather than the personal outcome—is refreshing and helpful in many ways.

Ethics as Worship could be used at the college or seminary level. It would be a useful pastoral reference, with up-to-date data on very important cultural debates. Thankfully, the authors tend to focus less on edge cases and so-called dilemmas than providing sound principles that can guide faithful moral decisions. There are several good ethics texts on the market, but this is another worthy one that deserves attention, adoption, and utilization.

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