J. I. Packer on the Puritans

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The brevity and fragility of life is exactly what makes the Puritans different from our contemporary “entrenched intellectualists,” who “present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all” (31). Truth and life were altogether too important to waste with argumentative posturing and saber rattling, The Puritans certainly battled many things in culture and in print, but in their writings, those always seem to be penultimate goals—the ultimate goal was increasing love and knowledge of the God of the universe.

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Can't Change the World? You Can Still Be Faithful.

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Impossible Christianity isn’t DeYoung’s sexiest work. It is clearly and solidly written. It can be read in a couple of hours or subdivided to be consumed over a few days. It tends to be more sermonic than ground-breaking. Nevertheless, it is a good and helpful book.

This is the sort of book that would be a great gift for the struggling parent of young children wondering how the treadmill of dishes, laundry, activities, and meals could matter in eternity. This is the sort of book that can serve as a reminder to those who are not leading ministries that their contributions are vitally important. Impossible Christianity offers a kind word for those who are struggling to find meaning in the repetition of daily life. As such, it is a valuable book for the church.

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How the West Got WEIRDER

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For Americans the year 1776 has legendary status. It is, of course, the year that the Continental Congress declared the United States independent from the colonial power of Britian.

As it turns out, the year was actually globally significant in a number of other ways. The Industrial Revolution was getting into full swing, there were a number of significant philosophical movements afoot whose effects we are still discovering today.

Andrew Wilson’s book, Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West is an attempt to bring many of those streams together to help explain how the world got turned upside down.

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The Blessing of a Limited Life

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Guardrails keep us on the pathway. They prevent us from falling off the cliff. They give us comfort that, though the paneling on our car may be damaged, if we slip on the icy road, yet we will not die.

A mountain road without those guardrails leaves us with a much greater fear. And that fear brings with it a greater pain. We experience that pain whether or not the worst happens, because we know there is a much higher likelihood that it will.

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Education as Moral Formation

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More than a decade into our home education experience, Macauley’s book fairly represents what we have been trying to do. I commend For the Children’s Sake to parents trying to figure out how to make a choice about educational methodologies. The Charlotte Mason approach is worth consideration, at least.

Macauley is realistic about the approach. She repeatedly notes areas in which she didn’t always get it right, because any educational process entails imperfect humans helping imperfect humans to learn. But she also provides illustrations of ways that her chosen approach can be self-correcting.

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Love Never Fails, Even if Memories Do

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This is a book that offers encouragement to those early in their Alzheimer’s journey. There is dignity for those who suffer from the malady. Subtly, Martin encourages readers to examine the assumption that we are our memories and that we cease to be who we are as a result of cognitive decline. Kathleen’s distinct personality remains with her to the end; that offers hope for all parties in the face of diagnosis.

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Glorify God By Thinking Well

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If we learned how to ask better questions of Scripture in our Bible studies, we might get beyond “What does this passage mean to you?” to ask why Peter quotes so much from the Old Testament. Persistence in pursuing clear lines of question, researching, and moving to the next step might get us from milk to meat and make the author of Hebrews happy.

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I Met Reality While Riding on a Lion

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In The Lion’s Country: C. S. Lewis’s Theory of the Real, Charlie Starr wades into deep water with Narnia’s creator. His book helps uncover a unified theme in Lewis’s work, pointing toward the objective moral order of the universe. The book provides some concrete forms for daunting, abstract questions.

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