Book Review
The tensions and inconsistencies that I have attempted to illustrate in this book review beg another question: What kind of reformation is The Gift of Life after? The answer Professor Vorster appears to provide is one of “flourishing personhood” that roots out . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
At this point it is worth asking: What informs Professor Vorster’s overarching moral vision? Throughout The Gift of Life, the contention is that definitions of human dignity found in the liberal democratic and human rights traditions can be translated into Christian value . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
North-West University Professor J. M. Vorster’s The Gift of Life: Toward an ethic of human personhood (2021) represents a crowning of his career as a Reformed Pastor, theologian, and ethicist in the South African context.1 I review this volume as a fellow . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
Although it is bad practice to believe in golden ages in the absolute sense, the present is certainly a high point for the church in the specific sense of the English-speaking world gaining increasing access to rich material from Protestant Orthodoxy that . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
We live in an age that has lost the plot. In this case it is not the world at large, but rather the broadly Protestant/evangelical world in the West—many things taken almost for granted by previous generations of Christians are met with . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
Country Music is a unique genre in terms of its Christian connections and interest in telling compelling stories. As a result, it faces up to the deep questions in life more often than other genres of music: it goes beyond mere love . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
In his book Suffering Not Power: Atonement in the Middle Ages, Benjamin Wheaton, a PhD graduate from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, challenges the conventional narrative popularized by Gustav Aulén that Christus Victor was the prevailing view . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
As a wise mentor once wryly commented, the problem with marriage books in the nineties was their overwhelmingly negative bent. In so many marriage books of yesterday, thesis was essentially: “You horrible idiot! Why would you even consider thinking about getting married? . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
From the author of The Lost Soul of American Protestantism and From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal American Conservatism, comes Benjamin Franklin: Cultural Protestant. Part of Oxford’s “Spiritual Lives” series, the host of the Paleo Protestant Pudcast (podcast) . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is man’s chief end?” The answer, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” I know, you know the answer already. You have heard it innumerable times. But . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
During my time as an undergraduate, I was required to take a number of Biblical studies courses. Many of the professors with whom I interacted, had little interest in seeing the Scriptures as a unified whole. Many of them openly mocked the . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
Not long ago, Reformed circles found it fashionable to criticize those on the other side of our intramural debates as being too Lutheran. If being too Lutheran means thinking anything like Todd Hains and reading Scripture with the care and purpose for . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
Churches in the modern world must increasingly realize that we have to reckon with difficult issues involving mental wellbeing, disability, and related concerns. As a pastor in London, one of the world’s largest urban centers where there were fewer ways even just . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
Geerhardus Vos: Reformed biblical theologian, academic, churchman, son, husband, father, professor, colleague, poet, Christian. Danny Olinger’s biography Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian, Confessional Presbyterian is a recommended read for pastors, students, and lay people. For pastors, particularly of the Reformed persuasion, this . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
The Biggest Story Bible Storybook written by Kevin DeYoung and illustrated by Don Clark, is a lighthearted, playful, yet faithful summary of the most important story ever told. It is one in a series of illustrated story Bibles by the duo. The . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12) Overly ambitious, I recently read C. S. Lewis’ Till . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
When I was a student at Westminster Seminary California, I once ordered a used volume of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series online. When the package arrived, I was surprised to discover that in its place I had been shipped a commentary . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
Dr. Richard Gaffin, professor emeritus of biblical and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia), is famous for his emphasis on redemptive history and the historia salutis, or the factors concerning Christ’s once-for-all accomplishment of redemption. Claiming the legacy of Geerhardus Vos . . . Continue reading →
Book Review
With his characteristic clarity and story-telling ability, R. C. Sproul’s Luther and the Reformation: How a Monk Discovered the Gospel reveals the lines of connection between the personal crises of Martin Luther’s life and the development of his theological thought. As the . . . Continue reading →
