Following up on his 2021 work The Failure of Natural Theology, which served as a clarion call to abandon the retrieval movement and return to a more biblical view of natural theology and Christian theism, Jeffrey Johnson has published another work towards this . . . Continue reading →
Reviews
Review: Covenant Foundations: Understanding the Promise-Keeping God of the Bible By Alec Motyer
I am not a betting man, but if I were I would be willing to bet some serious book money that if you start talking theological shop with any Presbyterian or Reformed Christian, you will hear the word covenant within the first . . . Continue reading →
Review: Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960: The Soul of Containment By William Inboden
In early July 2024, at the fourth annual National Conservatism Conference in Washington D.C., Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Doug Wilson, Pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, ID, met to discuss Christian nationalism in America.1 During a panel, . . . Continue reading →
Review: Children At The Lord’s Table? By Cornelis P. Venema (Part Three)
According to Venema, the “most important and compelling piece of New Testament evidence that bears on the question of paedocommunion is undeniably 1 Corinthians 11:17–34” (101). This is because this passage is “the most extensive and comprehensive New Testament passage on the . . . Continue reading →
Review: Children At The Lord’s Table? By Cornelis P. Venema (Part Two)
Venema observes that the Reformed churches are committed to the principle of sola Scriptura which means that the Scriptures are to be “regarded as the supreme standard for their faith and life,” but that principle does not mean that we read the Scriptures in isolation from the church or from church history (27). Continue reading →
Review: Children At The Lord’s Table? By Cornelis P. Venema (Part One)
In this volume Cornelis Venema tackles a serious problem in the Reformed world that needs to be addressed, and he has done so in a thoughtful, thorough, biblical, and confessionally Reformed manner. Background to the Review Before we begin the review, it . . . Continue reading →
Review: Praying with Jesus: Getting to the Heart of the Lord’s Prayer By Adriel Sanchez
I grew up outside of the Reformed tradition, though I have been a member of Presbyterian or Reformed churches for over a decade. Growing up, it was common to describe people in the church as “prayer warriors.” This is not something I . . . Continue reading →
Review: Reformed Scholasticism: Recovering the Tools of Reformed Theology By Ryan M. McGraw (Part Two)
McGraw’s advice about how to learn Latin has some useful and interesting aspects, but he seems to endorse a sort of inductive approach and uses the words “very little effort” (37). He seems to discourage memorization. Continue reading →
Review: Reformed Scholasticism: Recovering the Tools of Reformed Theology By Ryan M. McGraw (Part One)
Commendations In the wake of Richard Muller’s revolutionary work (he overturned a consensus of more than a century, grounded in the work of Alexander Schweizer [1808–1888] and Heinrich Heppe [1820–1879]), there are questions that remain to be addressed in the study and . . . Continue reading →
Review: The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis By Karen Swallow Prior
As of late, popular Christian culture has been saturated with books critical of evangelicalism—for supporting President Trump and Republicans as a voting bloc, for causing political divisiveness in the church, for being largely white, and for just generally supporting things that the . . . Continue reading →
Review: Thank God By Reuben Bredenhof
“Thank God!” It rolls right off the tongue. It is so easy to say most times that you do not even need to think about it. But perhaps that is the problem. How often do we think about giving thanks? When and . . . Continue reading →
Review: The Sabbath As Rest And Hope For The People Of God By Guy Prentiss Waters
Of the Ten Commandments, I am not sure there is one more ignored, or at least more misunderstood, than, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exod 20:8). The issue is not simply that it is disobeyed, but that it seems . . . Continue reading →
Review: Fundamentalists in the Public Square: Did Fundamentalists Retreat After the 1925 Scopes Trial? By Madison Trammel
As someone who spends a lot of time in the online world, reading a work with a clearly defined goal and supported by real research the author did themselves is unusually refreshing. For that reason alone, I would give this book five . . . Continue reading →
Review: Reformed Theology By Jonathan Master (Blessings Of The Faith Series)
In the wake of the New Calvinist (sometimes called the “Young, Restless, and Reformed”) movement, the adjective Reformed gets slapped on seemingly everything. What does it mean to be Reformed? Is it simply people who hold to a Calvinistic soteriology? Is it . . . Continue reading →
Review: Pride: Identity and the Worship of Self By Matthew P. W. Roberts
We have been wrestling with the word Identity and what it means now for decades, especially in our modern Western contexts. We are obsessed, it seems, with identification markers and belonging. Continue reading →
Review: Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation: Ancient Wisdom for Current Controversy By Gavin Ortlund
It was in seminary that a certain Church history professor (and President of the HRA) taught me about the technical theological distinction between lumpers and splitters. If you are unfamiliar, let me clue you in. There are people who group things together . . . Continue reading →
Review: A New Song: Biblical Hebrew Poetry As Jewish And Christian Scripture, Edited By Stephen D. Campbell, Richard G. Rohlfing Jr., And Richard S. Briggs
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, Still first to fly where sensual joys invade; Unfit in these degenerate times of shame, To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame; 1 In general, it is accurate to notice that poetry has . . . Continue reading →
Review: Poetry Of Redemption: An Illustrated Treasury Of Good Friday And Easter Poems By Leland Ryken
For a long time I have noticed that I have two sides to my interests and personality. I can be very rational and analytical in my approach to faith and life. I also have a love of the arts, particularly literature and . . . Continue reading →
Review: Grounded In Heaven: Recentering Christian Hope And Life On God By Michael Allen
I remember seeing my first one. It was beautiful, and I could barely take my eyes off of it. There before me on a simple piece of paper lay the answers to so many of my questions. This was the secret, the . . . Continue reading →
Review: Jesus And The Powers: Christian Political Witness In An Age Of Totalitarian Terror And Dysfunctional Democracies By N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird—Part 2
Part one of my review discussed the perceived (by me) strengths of the book. My review continues with part two, in which I will discuss its perceived (by me) weaknesses. Perceived Weaknesses 1. Social Gospel 201. I do not recall finding Walter . . . Continue reading →