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.

Glory Now Revealed

By Davis

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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.

Living on the Edge: When Hard Times Become a Way of Life

By Pascale, Celine-Marie

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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.

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.

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.

Ethics as Worship: The Pursuit of Moral Discipleship

By Mark Daniel Liederbach, Evan Lenow

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

Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention - A Review

When people get nostalgic for their childhood, they are usually remembering a time when things seemed simpler. That does not mean life was actually less complex, typically just that they were shielded from some of the twists, confusions, and injustices in the world.

My life was simpler before I knew about the powerful impact racism has had in our nation. Even in my early years in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) I was unaware of the racism that is at the very root of our denomination’s founding. I did not recognize that the racial homogeneity of my church was not simply a function of different preferences in music, but often because my denomination had not done enough to remove the stain of racism.

I previously attend a church that is dually affiliated with the SBC and the National Baptist Convention (NBC). The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. and is slowly becoming more racially diverse. The NBC is the largest predominantly African-American denomination in the U.S. My church has historically been predominantly African-American, but is becoming more diverse as we reflect more closely the demographics of our surrounding community. This is, in part, because my former pastor has made significant efforts toward encouraging racial reconciliation.

Being involved in a truly multi-racial congregation has caused me to develop a new perspective on race relations and racism. Hearing some of our oldest members tell stories, I can no longer argue that the Civil Rights struggles were “a long time ago” and ignore the legacy of racism in our nation. Listening to conversations around me, I can never again claim I don’t know that systemic biases exist.

A few months ago, my pastor asked me to teach church history to the congregation on Wednesday evenings. In four sessions, I skimmed the surface of the major themes of our Christian past. I spent more time talking about African-American church history in part because of my context and in part because I needed to learn more about it. One of the most painful parts of teaching that lesson was tracing through this history of race relations within the SBC; clearly, we’ve made progress, but it is also apparent we have much more to do.

Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention is a volume that tells the story of the SBC’s past, provides a theological basis for moving beyond it, and makes practical recommendations for future progress. This is a necessary next step in a conversation that the SBC has been having, but which needs to continue in earnest.

This volume is an outstanding resource for Southern Baptists and others to learn about racial reconciliation. The volume opens with a collection of SBC resolutions about race, which show the convention has been talking about race—sometimes using the right language—but making insufficient progress toward healing longstanding division. In the first chapter, Albert Mohler recounts the historic origins of the Southern Baptist Convention, which were grounded in the misguided beliefs of slave owners that they could participate in race-based chattel slavery and still be effective missionaries for Christ.

Chapter two is an essay by Matthew Hall, which follows the ongoing participation of some Southern Baptists in racist rhetoric and sometimes political activity. As much as we might wish otherwise, there were many “good Baptists” who argued for Jim Crow laws. The third chapter, by Jarvis Williams, provides a biblical argument for racial reconciliation.

The next six chapters outline suggestions from theologians, pastors, and editors at our denominational publishing house for removing the stain of racism from the Southern Baptist Convention. The body of the book ends with a summary of the state of racial reconciliation within the SBC: we have made progress, but have a long way yet to go. Dwight McKissic and Danny Akin offer epilogues explaining further why the stain of racism remains in the SBC. In a postscript, Vaughn Walker commends readers to continue the work and offers encouragement that the stain of racism can be removed from the SBC.

Although published by the academic arm of B&H, this volume is accessible to the average reader. The writers and editors worked together to create a book that can inform a wide swath of members of SBC churches. More importantly, the contributors to this volume constructed a compelling testimony that (a) racism still exists in our society and our organizations, and (b) there is something we can do about it.

The uniting metaphor of this volume is “removing the stain.” In the preface, the editors explain what that means and their definition is important. To some advocates in racial politics, the stain of racism is like the blood stains on Lady Macbeth’s hands: invisible to living eyes, but indelible to the psyche. The only solution for some is for organizations once complicit in racism to self-destruct. This volume offers a greater hope, recognizing that just as people are redeemable through the gospel, so are organizations.

The metaphor is apt because it also reflects the significant and often time-consuming effort required to remove a stain. Many of us have invested a great deal of time in stain treatments and washing garments by hand to save something treasured from a permanently embedded stain. Rarely are significant stains eradicated in the first attempt, but must be scrubbed repeatedly as by degrees the offending pigment is removed. That is the sort of effort required to continue the work of racial reconciliation in the SBC.

The formal apology for the racist origins of the SBC, affirmed as a resolution in 1995 is important. Electing Fred Luter as the first African-American president of the SBC in 2012 is significant. The resolution opposing the flying of the Confederate battle flag in 2016 takes another step forward. These are important efforts in removing the stain of racism, but they are not enough.

Removing the Stain of Racism reminds readers, with voices from both African-Americans and whites, that though the SBC has made great progress, there is a lot of work to be done. The memory of the racism in the SBC will never be erased, but the stain of racism can be removed. The challenge for the white majority of the SBC is not to attempt to declare victory on our stain-removal efforts too soon. As many have experienced, once you throw the stained garment into the dryer, the stain is often made permanent. We still have scrubbing to do.

Racial reconciliation takes work. While we may remember a time in our denomination’s history when efforts toward removing the stain of racism were not at the forefront, those days only seemed simpler because we were unaware of the problem. Talking about race and racial reconciliation is hard, not least because of the extreme rhetoric on the right and the left of us. The gospel demands we work toward racial reconciliation—no matter how nostalgic we are for simpler days, the work before us cannot be ignored.

NOTE: This article was previously published at B&H Academic Blog, which has since been archived due to a change in communications strategy. I have moved and am no longer a member of the same church that was referenced in this article, but I have left the references from the 2017 publication date.

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading - A Review

Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book is a classic introduction to the art of reading. It’s a favorite among homeschoolers and careful thinkers who have wanted to learn how to wrestle with ideas critically and thoroughly. Decades after the first edition was published, there is still a lot to commend it to readers. There is still much to be commended.

But I now have a new top book to recommend for those seeking to learn how to read better and to teach others to read better.

Leland Ryken and Glenda Faye Mathes teamed up to write Recovering the Lost Art of Reading to provide both encouragement and instruction in the practice of consuming literature in various genres.

The book begins with an explanation of the problem. Fewer people are reading books and they tend to read them carelessly. It’s not that fewer people are reading, because the flood of short internet articles ensure that people are taking in information and ideas through words. At the same time, the careful perusal of literature and well-written nonfiction in longform is an artform that fewer seem to be mastering.

Anecdotally, I have met more and more teens who have never read a single book in full, and I have had adults brag they haven’t cracked open a volume in a decade. Meanwhile, total sales of books are up, but I have to wonder what part the frequent sales on ebooks and the habits of prolific readers have to do with that trend. There is evidence that reading on screens is less effective than reading actual books.

The chief problem with a reduced rate of reading good books well is that books that have stood the connect us to our shared human heritage. In many cases these volumes are being ignored because of cultural concerns or because reading them is simply hard work.

 When the culture loses touch with the artifacts of its past we lose voices that can keep us from making old mistakes again, voices that call us to a deeper sense of beauty, and voices that connect us to minds from the past. As Alan Jacobs notes in his book, Breaking Bread with the Dead, when people stop reading “classics” (for whatever reason) we could be dragged back toward the past we long to avoid.

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading helps to remedy the lack of reading by providing accessible instruction about how to read well. So, the second (and far longer) part of the volume offers something of a primer on reading. It begins with a discussion of literature, its significance, and its benefits. Next, introduction to various genres with helpful instructions for reading each type of material well. After these helpful chapters on theory, Mathes and Ryken shift gears in Part Three to a mix of practical instruction and exhortation on recovering the art of reading, where they connect reading to the true, the good, and the beautiful. The pursuit of these is foundational to a well-lived life and a Christian life that seeks to recognize God at work in the world across cultures.

One of the notable features about the book is that there is a focus on a particularly Christian approach to reading. So, their chapter on the Bible as literature describes the process of reading Scripture for its beauty, form, and creativity as something that is spiritually significant. Similarly, the persistent concern for the moral exercise of reading is not primarily about academic virtue, but about putting on the mind of Christ by encountering truth, goodness, and beauty in transcultural forms.

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.

The unfortunate reality is that those that really need to read this volume—the truly reluctant readers—are unlikely to pick it up. But the casual reader can benefit and the seasoned reader can deepen their love for the practice. With so many distractions, in the form of funny internet videos and short blog articles, this book may not win as many as it should. However, the audience that it does reach will be improved and deepened in their understanding of literature, their love of reading, and their love of God.

As someone who loves reading, I found this book refreshing. Instead of providing rigid rules about book lists, types of reading, etc., we get a volume about taking delight in reading and growing through the process.

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.

The unfortunate reality is that those that really need to read this volume—the truly reluctant readers—are unlikely to pick it up. But the casual reader can benefit and the seasoned reader can deepen their love for the practice. With so many distractions, in the form of funny internet videos and short blog articles, this book may not win as many as it should. However, the audience that it does reach will be improved and deepened in their understanding of literature, their love of reading, and their love of God.

As someone who loves reading, I found this book refreshing. Instead of providing rigid rules about book lists, types of reading, etc., we get a volume about taking delight in reading and growing through the process.

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading: A Quest for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful

By Ryken, Leland, Mathes, Glenda

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A Look at One Case for Population Control

In the deep, dark corners of the Southern Baptist Convention’s theological past is a sociologist who taught at a Missouri State Convention affiliated college, wrote for the Christian Life Commission (the precursor to the ERLC), and advocated for abortion, forced sterilization, and legal penalties for exceeding an approved number of children. Since that point, his college disassociated from their denomination and Chasteen went on to form a non-profit organization dedicated to affirming the equal validity of all religions. Just how Baptist or even Christian Chasteen is or ever was is up for debate. There is little in his 1971 book or his various websites that can connects him to anything like Christian orthodoxy.

The thesis of Chasteen’s book is “that unless we act now to legislate a limit of two children per family, we have little hope of solving the other problems that beset us.” (vii) That problem Chasteen describe as an insidious disease: “The cancer of runaway population growth has eaten away both heart and soul of the body politic. We are on the verge of anarchy with only our will to survive and our determination to act staying our fall.” (33)

For Chasteen, every problem was driven by overpopulation. He writes, “If, as a nation and as individuals, we can summon the intelligence and the courage to bring population growth under control, we will find ourselves still faced with problems of race relations, crime, alienation, apathy, environmental degradation, and so forth, but with one big difference. The problems will then be capable of solution, whereas now they are not.” (33)

Chasteen echoes Paul Ehrlich’s popular book, The Population Bomb, in his concern for the growing number of individuals on the planet. His book, The Case for Compulsory Birth Control, was written while the Rockefeller commission was composing their report, which was commission and subsequently rejected by Nixon. Like Chasteen, the Rockefeller commission affirmed eugenic policies, widespread birth control funded by the government, and the expansion of access to abortion. Unlike Chasteen, the Rockefeller Commission only advocated for voluntary sterilization.

The entire tenor of Chasteen’s book is anti-human. He expresses concerns that “Death rates in the industrializing nations began to drop while birth rates remained at their previously high levels.” (25) Which leads to complaints that Americans shared medical technology with developing nations with a false sense of compassion and without permission.

Argues Chasteen:

“America has shared its medicines with the world, thinking that by doing so it was saving millions of people from early death, and so it was. . . . [However,] we were operating on a foundation of mistaken morality which made keeping people alive and end in itself. We inoculated, immunized and sprayed, and we felt good about our actions. . . . Motivated by benevolent ignorance of social forces and human desires, America played unintentional havoc with the destinies of nations and peoples. . . . In some parts of the world death rates were cut in half in only a decade, and sometimes without the consent or knowledge of the governments affected.” (26–27)

There is more, but it does not get much better.

At the root of Chasteen’s ethics is an individualistic, subjectivistic presumption: “An action is moral only when prompted or hindered by what is right as defined by the individual conscience.” (187)

In light of that naked assertion, Chasteen argues, “What this means is that a new rationale for sexual responsibility and exclusiveness is needed.” (187)

Chasteen demonstrates a full-throated adoption of the sexual revolution:

“Contraceptive technology has made it possible to separate sexual intercourse from conception, making it possible (and necessary) for us to rethink the philosophy of sex worked out before contraception. A very simple formula can be stated:

coitus – contraception = procreation

coitus + contraception = expression” (184)

He celebrates the individualism and autonomy of human sexuality because sex became disassociated from procreation, so that a woman on chemical birth control “can express her sexuality as she expresses her opinion––because of the meaning it has for her as an individual.” (184) He makes a similar argument for males who have had vasectomies.

Chasteen makes clear what contraception has done for sexual ethics in contemporary society:

“Contraception makes it possible to view sex as voluntary, interpersonal behavior rather than a necessary act of survival. Sex becomes a special method of communication between male and female. Sex thus loses its exclusively biological meaning and becomes more social. Like all social relationships, sex can be made constructive or destructive, depending upon the attitude and behavior of those involved. Sex can become a dialogue between two people in which comes to understand and appreciate the other. It can be an expression of the mutual dependence to human existence. Sex can be an enriching and compassionate human encounter or simply another opportunity for exploitation, satisfying a biological urge but destroying humanity socially and spiritually. It’s up to us.” (189)

There are a lot of strands to unwind in Chasteen’s writing on the subject, but he makes explicit the arguments that are assumed in our culture regarding the purpose of sex. The autonomous self is the champion of Chasteen’s moral vision, with no reference to the Christian faith, historical or otherwise. It is the individual alone who determines what is right. (A belief that undermines Chasteen’s plea that his perspective is the correct one, but whatever.)

Several lessons can be gleaned from reading books like Chasteen’s, The Case for Compulsory Birth Control.

1.       There were good reasons for the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. Chasteen advocates for multiple anti-Christian positions that are untenable with anyone remotely committed with the content of Scripture. The convention had to rid itself of the cancer of those like Chasteen to survive as a gospel-focused entity.

2.       The population control movement, which is now growing because of concerns over climate change, has its roots in a dark movement that has to find a way to mourn the decrease in suffering due to premature death. It has not, as far as I can tell, found a way to do so, it has simply tended to skip over the assumption that it would be better if the superfluous people didn’t survive past their age of usefulness.

3.       Beware people who see one big social problem as the key to all other problems. A big idea like overpopulation, systemic racism, or climate change can be used as a way to blind listeners to the moral evil being proposed on one front for the perceived good result on another. Society is complicated. Solving climate change won’t fix poverty. Eliminating systemic racism won’t reduce our carbon footprint. Limiting population growth will not eliminate crime. It is impossible to attain a good society through persistent evil.

Dignity for Back Row America

God created humans in his own image. (Gen 1:26–27) There is a great deal of honor and dignity that comes with that blessing. We all subconsciously recognize our status as made in the image of God, which gives everyone an innate desire for dignity.

In 2019, former Wall Street trader, Chris Arnade, left his day job to photograph and interview people from what he calls “Back Row America.” This group includes individuals on the political left and right, but who have all been effectively left behind by polite society and the economy.

Arnade’s journeys took him across the United States to areas with mixed histories, ethnicities, and economic struggles. As he notes in his introduction:

“What they had in common was that all were poor and rarely considered or talked about beyond being a place of problems. All had been described as left behind, despite some, like Hunts point, being adjacent to rich and successful neighborhoods. Residents growing up in these communities faces immense structural obstacles, and some, like minority neighborhoods, had for a very long time.

Despite their differences––black, white, Hispanic, rural, urban–they were all similar to Hunts Point in one important way: despite being stigmatized, ignored, and made fun of, most of the people I met were fighting to maintain dignity.

They feel disrespected––and with good reason. My circles, the bankers, business people, and the politicians they supported had created a world where McDonald’s was often one of the only restaurant options––and we make fun of them for going there.”

And if you’re reading this, you (like me) probably fall into the category who have fallen into unfounded assumptions about people and ignorant attitudes toward them because they looked down and out, were at a McDonalds, especially if they were a bit loud or out of place in public. Very few middle class and up individuals are exempt from having experienced this in themselves.

Dignity is a raw look at the desire for respect. It’s a reminder that everyone has a story. There was a commercial that ran when I was a kid during the height of the drug wars. It reminded the audience that “no one wants to be a junkie when they grow up.” The message was clear: if you use drugs, you are a loser and the way you get there is by making bad choices.

There is some validity in that argument, but it fails to take into account social and cultural pressures. It neglects the influence that the frustrations about systems that are designed for people with resources.

Think about how it is nearly impossible to apply for a job without a home address. Or consider what it is like to fill out a background check application when you’ve bounced from apartment to shelter to relatives’ homes for the past three years. Furthermore, ponder what it must be like not to have a working smart phone, tablet, or computing device in a timeframe when apps, websites, and email are primary means of communication. There are many people who live close to the line of success and failure, where a blown-out tire, a medical problem, or a couple of mistakes between paydays can start ripples that spread into disfunction. Eventually, the comfort of a drug-induced high can seem like a blessing that takes away the pain and stress for a little while. It doesn’t make anything better, but it can make someone feel better for a little while.

Arnade reminds us that the person who has fallen into the hole of addiction may not have known anything different or may have been set on the path by a personal disaster. They are worth respect. They deserve dignity. They are made in the image of God.

There are unhealthy aspects of this book. Arnade admits that his involvement in the night life of the streets contributed to his own drug issues and problems within his family. There is also a level of voyeurism in reading the accounts of prostitutes, drag queens, dealers, unemployed, and underemployed. If voyeurism can be justified, at least Arnade’s Dignity carries out the purpose of reminding readers that the weathered, bedraggled, odd-behaving individuals we often avoid in public are people, made in the image of God who have stories, hopes, dreams, and a desire to be recognized for the goodness of being human.

Dignity should help remind readers that the unwashed “other” are not a problem to be dealt with, but people to be engaged with as worthy of respect and honor. As well, Arnade issues a warning that the same group is not a social project that exists to make the middle class feel good about their beneficence. There aren’t a lot of particular solutions in Dignity, but recognizing the inherent value of those on the edge of society is a big step toward spanning some of the fissures in our divided country.

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America

By Arnade, Chris

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The End of Our Exploring - A Review

If what I see on social media is to be believed, all the cool kids are deconstructing the faith of their childhood. It’s all the rage, but it’s not really a new thing.

For some, kissing dating goodbye was a traumatic experience, though for many of the most vocal critics, I suspect Josh Harris’s book provided a solution to a problem they only wish they had. Nevertheless, the experience turned too much for Harris’s faith, as he has recently abandoned Christianity and begun selling “deconstruction kits” along with a series of webinars for $275.

Other deconstruction workers are less entrepreneurial, but there is a steady stream of people who were once overt, professional Christians who have transitioned to making money off of deconverting and encouraging other people to do the same.

One response to the deconstruction/deconversion movement is to provide answers to the cultural defeaters of the day. Standard apologetics books like Lee Strobel’s Case for Christ or Josh McDowell’s More than a Carpenter provide helpful aids to those with general struggles regarding particular questions about Christianity. Other books like Tim Keller’s The Reason for God and Making Sense of God tend to focus on bigger picture problems and defeaters. Recently books like Alisa Childers’s Another Gospel? tell the story of starting down the path of deconstruction and ending back a Jesus. These assume that someone is either outside of Christianity looking in or already down the road of deconversion and need pulling back. It is a helpful approach for many.

But what about those that stand on the fuzzy border between faith and doubt and wonder which way to turn?

Matthew Lee Anderson’s 2013 book, The End of Our Exploring: A Book About Questioning and the Confidence of Faith, provides a helpful resource for those with questions or who want to create a space for legitimate questions within the faith community.

Anderson is a pastor’s kid who was (by his own confession) the insufferable know-it-all who was too cocksure to ask good questions or hear good answers. He has come a long way, and this book can help readers make significant progress without some of the awkward relationships.

The book begins by exploring the nature of questioning, identifying that many questions are not good questions because they presuppose an answer. They key message is that good questions can be helpful as we seek to recalibrate our faith—knocking off the pieces inconsistent with Scripture and keeping the parts that fit with an integrated biblical understanding––but most people are not well-equipped to ask good questions.

Anderson goes on to note that our information economy that values data rather than wisdom contributes to shallowness of discourse. So does the shallowness with which much of the Christian community in the West actually holds their Christian convictions. The result is that young people often either fail to ask good questions or encounter hostility when questions are asked.

Questioning is viewed as dangerous in some churches because too few people know the answers. In some churches, questioning is taboo because it leads to the uncovering of inconsistencies between faith and practice. Sometimes questioning is unwelcome because the people being questioned have the same questions, fear they are wrong, but are clinging to faith in the face of that prospect.

Some see questioning as an act of faithlessness, but Anderson shows how good questioning can be a catalyst for a deeper faith, because there are valid answers to the hardest questions that can be tossed at Christianity. The End of Our Exploring explains why that is so and also helps the reader begin to formulate better questions.

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.

The way that Anderson encourages exploring is critical to the outcome achieved. The nature of this exploring is clear from the title of the book, which comes from a T. S. Eliot poem:

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

That perspective marks the fundamental difference between faithful questioning and deconstructing. When people deconstruct they are seeking to tear down because they’ve already decided the thing is wrong. Anderson’s questioning and exploring is an attempt to know the truth better. It does not presuppose the truth, as if the conclusion is foregone and the exploration is simply a sowing of wild oats, but it does not begin from a posture of skepticism and caustic disbelief.

 The End of Our Exploring is a warm, personal book. It is thoughtful, rigorous, and challenging. Above all, it is helpful as I continue my exploring and seek to point other explorers toward a deeper understanding of truth.

The End of Our Exploring: A Book about Questioning and the Confidence of Faith

By Anderson, Matthew Lee

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Eschatological Discipleship - A Review

Trevin Wax is one of the most incisive cultural commentators in the evangelical community. He has a talent for moving past pearl clutching about trends in pop culture by asking foundational questions about the ideas that animate to moral activity in entertainment and society. His 2018 book, Eschatological Discipleship is an overt presentation of the theological analysis that is evident in the background of Wax’s popular books and blogs.

Eschatology is the oft neglected and frequently abused topic in Christian systematic theologies. As Wax notes, discussions of the end times in seminary courses tend to be stuck on the end of the course syllabus and often are the first to get axed when discussions of soteriology and ecclesiology run long at the beginning of the semester. More often, the term eschatology is understood to mean endless debate about the nature and timing of the rapture, the intrigue of the mark of the beast, and various theories on the millennium.

This book gets beyond the most common pitfalls of eschatological debate to focus on the core issue of eschatology as it is woven throughout Scripture. In particular, Wax emphasizes the idea of eschatology as a source for telos; it is the theological topic that provides the best evidence for the meaning of life. In other words, eschatology is not primarily about charts and timing, but about providing a lodestar of eternal purpose to navigate life in ever-changing times.

In Eschatological Discipleship: Leading Christians to Understand their Historical and Cultural Context, Wax does something few treatments of the topic do: he offers an analysis of the eschatologies of worldviews that compete with Christianity. His analysis of the eschatology of the Enlightenment, the Sexual Revolution, and Consumerism are unique in their revelation of the unspoken, but evident meaning encoded in those rival systems of meaning. This book provides a framework for discussing the often-obscured theologies of those movements.

Wax begins the book with a chapter defining the term eschatological discipleship. He argues, “eschatological discipleship is spiritual formation that seeks to instill wisdom regarding the contemporary setting in which Christians find themselves (in contrast to rival conceptions of time and progress) and that calls for contextualized obedience as a demonstration of the Christian belief that the biblical account of the world’s past, present, and future is true.” (p. 41) This definition makes clear Wax’s aim, which is to present a theological argument that unquestionably leads to obedience.

In three chapters, Wax presents a biblical theology of eschatological discipleship, beginning with the Old Testament, then focusing on the Gospels and Acts, and concluding with a survey of the topic in Paul’s letters. It becomes evident through this survey that all of Scripture encourages Christians to ask, “What time is it?”, so they can understand their culture and how they should live in their particular context to the glory of God.

Chapter Five presents the idea of eschatology within non-Christian thought, which leads the way into the helpful analysis of the next three chapters. In the sixth through eighth chapters of the book, Wax performs a critical analysis of the eschatology of the Enlightenment, the Sexual Revolution, and Consumerism, which all compete with Scripture to dominate the worldviews of Christians in our age. In the final chapter, Wax shows how his presentation of eschatological discipleship can enhance the practice of evangelical theology and equip every church member to better respond to the confused theologies around them.

Trevin Wax is one of the most gifted writers among evangelicals. This academic book is no exception. The prose is clear and the arguments careful. He manages to raise concern about the real problems within the dominant culture of the West without calling for withdrawal or reflexive combativeness. Eschatological Discipleship is a specimen of Christian scholarship in its most helpful form: theologically precise and readable.

Those who have read other books by Wax will likely see the connection between another of his recent books, This is Our Time: Everyday Myths in Light of the Gospel, and this volume. Eschatological Discipleship makes clear the theological framework that This is Our Time presents in a practical, popular format. The close connection between the two books offer an example for Christian scholars for how to translate scholarship for broad consumption and how to most efficiently steward their research by pitching their arguments to multiple audiences.

Eschatological Discipleship is a useful resource for pastors and scholars seeking to understand the contours of contemporary culture better. Theologically informed laity will likely find this book an accessible and informative volume, too. This is a book that will have enduring value for its analytical content and exemplary argumentation.

NOTE: This article was originally posted at the B&H Academic Blog, which has since been archived due to a change in strategy.