Tag Archives: Book Review

Book Review: The Trial of the 16th Century, Calvin & Servetus

01 Tuesday Nov 2022

Posted by in Book Review, Church History, John Calvin

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The rhetoric around the death of Michael Servetus is extraordinary. On one hand, it seems that John Calvin dragged a peaceable, intelligent, urbane scientist to the stake with his bare hands; forcibly tied the man of the world to the post and lit a fire using nothing more than burning hatred and malevolent intent. On the other hand are those, deny any relationship between the execution and the pastor.  (The weight of popular opinion lying far more heavily in favor of Calvin being a murderous beast.)

If you think I overstate the case, an internet search will set you straight.

If anyone would actually be concerned with the facts rather than accusations of this matter, I have found no better resource than Jonathan Moorhead’s Trial of the 16th Century, Calvin & Servetus. Dr. Moorhead seeks to neither castigate nor defend the participants. Rather, he performs the far more useful historical task of seeking to understand the participants on their own terms.

Moorhead understands his task as follows:

Since the writing of history is an ethical responsibility, it is important to be cautious of anachronism. To judge another culture and time based upon one’s own is unfair, and is a violation of the golden rule to treat others as one wants to be treated. As such, anachronistic judgments are unethical. Each time period must be judged by the prevailing laws of the time, not those of the future. Primary evidence of this, as previously mentioned, is Scripture itself. Charity is thus needed to evaluate those with whom we agree theologically, and those with whom we do not. (Moorhead, Jonathan. The Trial of the 16th Century: Calvin & Servetus (pp. 91-92). Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition.)

I found Moorhouse to meet this test quite well. First, he cites to his evidence and does not go beyond his evidence. I never found him inflammatory nor did I see evidence of trying to excuse anyone. Second, he puts the primary “problem” for contemporary understanding of this execution front and center. We find the execution of someone for heresy disturbing, at least. However, in the 16th Century, execution for heresy was a common place throughout Europe and was approved by all governments and leading religious figures.  Moorhead provides numerous quotations from Protestant leaders, so that no contemporary Protestant reader can try to foist this opinion onto some other group nor try to turn Calvin in a 21st Century figure.

Third, Moorheads spends considerable time placing Calvin and the Servetus into historical context. While I have general knowledge of the 16th Century and know some general trends, what I did not know was the immediate context for Calvin and Servetus on the days in question.

Calvin was in the midst of a conflict with the political leaders in Geneva when the events of Servetus took place. There was significant history between Calvin and Servetus. Servetus had his own context which intersected with Calvin resulting in an outcome that neither man could control.

The context and forces pressing upon the people involved extended beyond Calvin or Servetus. Geneva, and the Reformation, were faced with pressures and decisions which went beyond the immediate question of what this City was to do with this heretic. The decisions made in Geneva had effects throughout Europe.

This third element, the particular context for these particular people at this particular time, goes a long to help understanding why other heretics were simply banished, while Servetus was executed.

At the end of the book Moorhead add a helpful Appendix which summarizes the 22 steps in his analysis. For instance, point 1, “Imperial law stated that Anabaptism and denying the Trinity were heresies punishable by death.”

The book was well written and to the point. While one learns a great deal about Calvin, Servetus, as well the political and religious world of the 16th Century, the focus always remains upon the central issue(s), “Did Calvin want Servetus to be executed? Did he try to lure him to Geneva to be killed? Was Calvin the Pope of Geneva that dictated the direction of the trial? Did he murder Servetus?”

I have purposefully not disclosed the conclusions which Moorheard reaches in this book, because I want you to read it.  I highly recommend this volume.

A short bio of Dr. Moorhead’s ministry can be found here.

Book Review God in Our Midst, Daniel R. Hyde

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Book Review, Exodus, Uncategorized

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Length, 222 pages (including appendix). Published 2012, Reformation Trust.

In Exodus 35, Moses takes up an offering for property to be used in the building of the wilderness Tabernacle. In chapter 35, we begin the account of the building of the tabernacle. Earlier chapters discuss the lampstand, the bronze altar, the showbread, the courtyard. This description of curtain rings and animal skins and golden vessels can easily be bewildering; and at first seems like a great deal of detail for little purpose.

It is that purpose which Hyde seeks to explain.

In 17 chapters, Hyde methodically works through the details of the tabernacle. The chapters follow a basic plan and are structured like a series of short sermons. Each chapter begins with a quotation of the applicable text. There follows an introductory statement which demonstrates the importance of particular aspect of the tabernacle. In good sermonic fashion, there are three points concerning the item which are detailed, together with application.

By way of illustration, I will take one chapter from the middle of the book. Chapter 7 concerns the Bronze altar. The essential purpose of the altar is to teach us and remind us of our need to resolve our conflict with God on the basis of justice and mercy. Hyde develops this theme through three points: Satisfaction, Confession and Substitution.

 

Satisfaction: There is a conflict between us and God which must be resolved: there must be satisfaction for our sin. Hyde highlights the fire which is to be kept always burning on the altar. That fire was originally started by God.  That fire needed a constant satisfaction, “The fire of the altar needed to be satisfied constantly lest it be extinguished.” Hyde then draws in the observation from Hebrews, “Our God is a consuming fire.” Heb. 12:28.

From that, Hyde applies the doctrine by means of reference to the Heidelberg Catechism. Hyde makes frequent reference to Reformation Confessions and Catechisms.  This makes work constantly practical and applicable.

The reference to confessional documents anchors Hyde’s doctrine and protects against the fear that he is going too far or has become fanciful in his observations about the elements of the Tabernacle. Even if one were to think a particular observation as mistaken (Hyde is quite judicious in his reading; and I never found him outlandish, but some may feel strange thinking that the rim on the table for the bread is an illustration of perseverance by God’s sovereign act), there is never a fear that his doctrine has gone afield.

Next Hyde comes to Confession: When the sacrifice was presented, the one making the offering placed their hands upon the animal’s head. In Leviticus 16:21, we are told that when offering the animal the priest would confess the sins of the people. Wenham also notes that a prayer was offered with the sacrifice.

From this act, Hyde discusses the doctrine of repentance (with reference to the Westminster Larger Catechism and the Book of Common Prayer).

The final section speaks to the substitution of the sacrifice for the sinner offering the animal. At this point, Hyde makes an insightful application:

Do you ever get that nagging feeling that you are just not doing enough? To need to be better person, to be more generous with your time and money, to be more patient, more loving, more forgiving – and the list goes on. You have these feelings because you are guilty. But there is nothing you can do to take away that guilt; there is no point in trying harder. (111).

This gives a fair example of the structure and content of the book. The tone of the book overall is pastoral. It reads like a well-thought-out sermon. The book is not aimed at academics nor is it aimed at those who are seeking Christian pablum and entertainment. It is a serious book; but not a difficult book. It will demand attention, but it is not beyond the average reader.

It also fills a useful need. There are very few mediations nature: it does not seek to explain all of the ANE parallels, but rather seeks to draw out the spiritual lesson of the building. Indeed, I have only one other book in this vein (Soltau’s The Tabernacle, printed in 19th Century). It is ideally structured for personal devotion (indeed, the book should be digested, not merely referenced), small groups or even as a source book for a preacher (he has an appendix for those who may preach Moses’s books).

Recommended.

Book Review: The College Choice

28 Thursday Dec 2017

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Todd M. Sorrell, has quite a background: a former partner with an international law firm, a business man and published author. He is also an ACBC certified counselor and an adjunct professor of Biblical Counseling at The Masters University.  HIs book The College Choice began as a master’s thesis.  The question which lies behind the book is simple: Why should I choose one college over another?

In asking this question Todd runs through the basic questions which admittedly drove my college selection — and which informed my expectations for my children: What sort of opportunities will this give my child? Will this help them get a job? Get into graduate school? Make them smarter?

But what if prestige and money were not the only considerations in life? What if there were something more important than being rich?

Or to pu the question more pointedly: What if college actually did something to a student? What if college influenced the student? While I have seen this addressed from various political angles, I have not read much about how a Christian should choose a college on distinctly Christian concerns.

Todd addresses college choice from a distinctly Christian and biblical perspective: What does the Scripture say about influence? How does influence work? How should we understand influence?

Perhaps the most piercing question any believer can ask (or be asked) when considering a college is this: “What do you want to attend this school?” The answer will show a deep regard and consideration of God’s Word, or it will not. It will focus on spiritual concerns, or it will not. It will demonstrate a careful analysis of the heart issues associated with such big question or it will not. In short, answering the “Why?” question will reveal whether or not a student is choosing college for the glory of God.

In full disclosure, Todd is a friend and I received a review copy of this book. That, however, makes the last point most valuable: I was provoked by Todd’s book and the painstaking argument about choosing a college. I was provoked to example my own life and more directly how I thought about my children their education. I had always had a desire for giving my children the “best” education — through college. Todd made me think more carefully about the “best”.  His careful and penetrating analysis of the question of influence made me think more carefully about my own decisions.

The book addresses the elements of college choice and influence from a number of factors. Don’t think that you understand the details because you know the premise. Being a trained and talented attorney, Todd is thorough in his examination of the issue. You will learn something that you didn’t know.

The book obviously has immediate importance for those who helping their children choose college — but also those in a position where they are asked about making such a choice, just as a pastor or counselor.  Without hesitation I recommend this book.

Book Review: Now My Eyes Have Seen You

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by in Book Review, Job, Uncategorized

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9780851114989-Fyall-NSBT-Now-my-eyes-have-seen-you-Job

Fyall lays the crux of Job as the question of which and why the evil? More precisely, he lays out two related questions. Is God Job’s advocate or his Satan (accuser) is God for Job or against him:

Here Job comes close to reconstructing the scene of the heavenly council in the Prologue; but he turns it inside out. He identifies God as his enemy rather than his advocate. At this crucial point he is tested to the ultimate. From his perspective he is led to wonder if God in whom he trusted is not in reality his satan.

Page 43, quoting J.E. Hartley. A related question is the presence of evil in creation. To Job, there seems to be a dualism in creation: an equal evil power to the power of God, a power which lies in contrast to God but which operates on the same plain as God.

To combine the questions: Is this affliction the power of God or is it the power of something God cannot control?

To develop this question, Fyall looks to the nature of the evil powers as presented in the language of ANE mythology.  There is way in which the allusions would be understood. This is not to say that Job believes the ANE mythology but rather that the allusions give detail and personification to the evil:

My argument is that personification is necessary because it corresponds to a profound reality. The reality is that the universe is not a mechanical system as envisioned by a rationalistic deism (which, incidentally, is a metaphorical view as any other) but a vast series of complex relationships involving not only God but other powers. It is, in other words, the metaphor of the heavenly court that brilliantly embodies this idea.

Pages 125-126.

Working through this thesis, Fyall explains the manner in which God’s speech to Job answers the question: and thus leads to Job’s statement,

Job 42:5 (ESV)

5  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,

but now my eye sees you;

Job realizes there are no powers beyond God’s control; Job learns to understand God more clearly.

In addition to working through this issue, Fyall develops various themes and makes observations which help us to understand theology and the Scripture well beyond Job. For example, the discussion of Jesus and the sea opened up a whole new way to understand Jesus walking upon and Jesus stilling the sea.

 

Book Review: Schizophrenia, Mental Illness and Pastoral Care

23 Sunday Apr 2017

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Adam Lambdin, author of Schizophrenia, Mental Illness and Pastoral Care (2016) can write from personal experience that “Schizophrenia is diabolical” (52).  Adam is schizophrenic. I hesitate to write that Adam “suffers” from schizophrenia, but because he has not suffered direct and indirect consequences of the disease: he has; but rather because Adam has blessed the church with his account of schizophrenia.

The book has three primary elements: Adam’s personal experience; a brief discussion of physiology of the disease; and a discussion of what has and has not helped in responding to this disease.

Adam’s personal history was quite useful for understanding what it is like to live with schizophrenia. The process by he came to understand his condition is both fascinating and heartbreaking. As the effects of the disease grew, Adam did not suspect the true nature of his difficulties, “After all, I had absolutely no clue that I was schizophrenic.”

His explanation of how there were delusions which covered up the delusions which he suffered — the delusions about the delusions — well demonstrated the tremendous pit into which this disease can drive one — hence, the reason he calls the disease “diabolical” (not demonic, which unfortunately some well-meaning people believed to be the case). The delusions created  a horror movie hall of mirrors within his brain.

Adam then reviews medical evidence that schizophrenia is a real disease. Unfortunately, there has been a deal of confusion on this point, within and without the church. This is the trouble with a disease which is typically diagnosed based upon behavior and affect and self-reported states of mind.

How does one rightly and accurately distinguish between those problems with result from physical disease and those which flow from personal volition? When presented with someone who is depressed, or who refuses to follow instruction, or who behaves in an inappropriate manner, does their outward expression come from a lack of self-control, a damaged brain, drug use, some sinful choice. These can be very difficult questions and the interaction between physical and spiritual causes can be very hard to disentangle.

Adam’s experience and observations on these points need to be carefully considered. His advises (page 53) that one begin with a charitable posture when the underlying cause is doubt; something with which I would agree.

The third topic covered in the book is the response to his schizophrenia. Adam details the many well-intentioned and yet hurtful responses, and the insufficient counsel he received.

A great deal of this discussion concerns the biblical counseling world, which sadly, has had some advocates who were not helpful here. (I write this as a biblical counselor professor at The Masters University, so biblical counseling is something I sincerely advocate.) There have those who have tried to reduce all instances of bad outcome labeled “psychotic” or “schizophrenic” (this label has and been used to describe various persons who may not all have the same underlying physical problems; the famous musician or actor who melts down in public, may be “crazy” or even “psychotic” without suffering from a degenerative brain disease).

There is a physiological brain disease called “schizophrenia” that entails damage to the brain. The precise mechanism by which this disease begins and progresses is not as well understood as I wish it were. Thank God, there is some medication which can alleviate some symptoms of the disease.

Yet, the failure to carefully distinguish between people who have a degenerative brain disease and people who are just degenerates has hurt people like Adam. Insisting that someone “repent” of schizophrenia makes as much sense as telling someone to repent of the flu. (And in both instances, the physical problem can become a basis for temptation. But it is no sin to suffer from a disease. People who are physically ill need compassion and medical treatment).

Adam’s discussion of the sort of counsel, instruction which helps with schizophrenia is discussed as a distinction between “secular” psychology and biblical counseling. This is the one place where I would take the most exception with Adam. Not that I disagree with those sorts of things which have been helpful. But I do not believe the line is drawn in the right place in terms of the positions:

There are people who think they are offering counsel consistent with the Scripture; who are not. There are those who know too little about what the Scripture provides, and thus offer inadequate counsel.

The various forms of counsel which proved most effect for managing the effects of the hallucinations and delusions are not foreign to biblical counseling as a discipline — even though they may little known or practiced by counselors. For instance, a great of what is discussed by Richard Sibbes in the early 17th century in his work The Soul’s Conflict With Itself is in accord with the sort taking one’s thoughts captive (2 Cor. 10:5) taught to Adam by his psychologists. Indeed, I have personally given very similar counsel to a man suffering from auditory hallucinations and know that similar counsel has been given by biblical counselors to those suffering from schizophrenia.

That does not mean that I am not interested to read what these psychologists and psychiatrists have done which they have found effective.

However, it is precisely because Adam has been poorly counseled by well-meaning Christians that I would want counselors to read this book and think and train more carefully than they have done.  But this is not the place to work through that complex issue.

And so, in short, I am very pleased that Adam has written this book. I have had the honor of having Adam as a graduate theology student at The Masters University — and even had some brief discussions with him on this subject. I will be recommending this book to counselors and students — not just for those who are particularly interested in schizophrenia, but for all those who seek to better understand the question of brain disease or injury and counseling issues (that is a particularly difficult question, because it is hard to know precisely what is the cause or this or that). There has been far too little consideration of these questions in the biblical counseling world. Adam’s book is a welcome addition to the discussion.

(I was not paid for this review. I purchased a copy of the book to give this review.)

Book Review: Identity and Idolatry The image of God and its inversion

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Book Review, Culture, Idolatry, imago dei, Thesis, Uncategorized

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Identity and Idolatry
The image of God and its inversion
Richard Lints
172 page IVP, 2015

In the first chapter, Lints makes clear that this discussion about the imago Dei will not concern “human nature”, but rather is an “account about how life is lived as reflections of God and as reflected in our communal contexts” (24). “The imago Dei captures this transitory reality – as an image is contingent upon the object for its identity, so the imago Dei is contingent upon God for its identity” (29).

In this respect, Lints’ thesis matches closely with the aphorism of Beale’s title, “We Become What We Worship.”

Chapter 2, “A Strange Bridge” works out the concept of “image” in some detail. The last paragraph of the chapter has this wonderful sentence, “Image bearers are not intrinsically idolatrous though they are doxologically fragile” (42).

The next two chapters begin to work the biblical text in greater detail as it concerns “image.” Being made as the image of God, we are hardwired, if you will to reflect: “Humans are made in such a way as to yearn for something beyond themselves that grants them significance, most notably the God who made them as his image” (62).

This thread will be developed in the second half of the book, when Lints turns to the question of
idolatry.

There is profound irony in idolatry. Human beings will become conformed to what we worship — we are built to worship and reflect (which are aspects of the same process). Now an idol is an image created by human desire coupled with the promise of fulfillment:

It was because the fragility of the human heart disposed it to yearn for security on its own terms. This disposition was made all the more dangerous when it was underwritten with the power to create gods in their own imagination. This points at the reality that idolatry was not in the first instance a cognitive error (believing in other gods) but a fallacy of the heart (yearning for control) (86).

It is a god who can be controlled and made fulfill and meet the human desire: and yet, that desire cannot be met by the idol, because the cannot do anything. And since those who make idols “become like them” (Ps. 115:8; interesting that Lints does not interact with this verse and only once makes mention of the Psalm; however, the concept is everywhere present in his discussion of idolatry), the idol worshipper becomes captivated by and transformed in unfulfilled desire:

Paul is insistent that idols will not deliver on their promises. Instead they create consuming passions in which there is deliverance. This inverted state is surprising from one angle-how foolish humans are to suppose they can have a god on their own terms. And yet the inversion produces an entirely predictable consequence — abandoning God results in an identity crisis wherein one’s safety and significance become endlessly fragile (111).
Chapter 7, “The rise of suspicion: the religious criticism of religion” is a brilliant summation of 19th philosophy its critique of Christianity — a critique which still plays in the broader culture. I am honestly amazed at Lints ability to aptly and fairly summarize Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche in such a small space.I have lectured on these most of these men and know who hard they are to summarize in any cogent and fair manner.

The final chapter is good solid advice for Christians.

There are enormous gaps in my discussion of this book — because I want you to buy it and use it.

Book Review: Shepherds After My Own Heart, Timothy S. Laniak

02 Wednesday Dec 2015

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Short version: If you are a pastor, buy and read this book

Long version:

Laniak has written a biblical theology of the Shepherd-Motif which begins in the Pentateuch and ends in Revelation. While the book does create a basis for understanding the work of a pastor in daily church work and does make occasional “practical” comments, this book is not a how-to of the pastor’s office.

It is precisely this lack of detailed “practical” information which I think makes this book particularly useful and necessary. Too many pastoral books and blogs are written without a sufficient grounding in theology. Pastors are trained to be pragmatists, not pastors, and thus have done a better job at filling building, selling things and moving people around than they have in leading people safely to Christ.

Lanai rightly explains, “Biblically, leadership can only be understood in terms of a fully integrated theological vision of God and his work on work” (249). This is where his book is so needed:

Our theology of leadership is informed by this breathtaking choice of God to grant royal prerogatives to his creatures. To be made in his image is rule with him and for him….Every shepherd leader is first and always a sheep who relates to god as ‘my Shepherd.’ (248).

Shepherding is a profoundly theological task — and thus the theology must be rightly understood.

Christ is the True God-Man Shepherd:

Laniak reads the Scripture as one of progressive revelation (thus working out biblical theology in the lines set out by Vos), showing out the pastoral imagery is made complete in Christ.

He begins the work with a useful discussion of metaphor. He explains not merely the how of metaphor, but also the why: metaphors teach us and affect us: “It is precisely in the combining of cognitive content with affective associations that metaphor gains its power” (39). Metaphors help us to understand by both explaining to us and changing us. It is one thing to say that God is in control for our good; it is better to say that God cares for us like a shepherd.

That leads to the second chapter: If we will understand the metaphor, we must understand the original. Most of the readers will be like me — I am not a shepherd from the ANE and I have never been shepherd. My sheep time amounted to a few minutes in a petting zoo at the fair.

Thus, Laniak gives a detailed treatment of the shepherd’s work and the shepherd’s economy. He also shows how the shepherd image was a common one throughout the ANE.

Having provided a background, Laniak begins his analysis of God as the shepherd of Israel in the wilderness during the Exodus. This theme of God as the wilderness shepherd is a strand which Laniak traces throughout the Scripture, tying the understanding of the wilderness shepherd to Jesus as the Shepherd of the Church. The Scripture has an organic whole where the first elements culminate in the last:

The Shepherd of Israel was, through Israel, seeking a remnant from all the nations (cf. Amos 9:12), i.e., ‘sheep which are not of this fold’ (John 10:16 NASB). (93)

Next comes the Davidic King as the development of God as the Kingly Shepherd over the people of God. Unfortunately, the actual kings of God’s people were corrupt and not fit undershepherds of Israel’s God. Therefore, God sent prophets who rebuked the false shepherds and promised the new — true Shepherd — who lead God’s people in a second Exodus.

Interestingly, in the prophetic development of the Shepherd there are human and divine elements. First, It is God who is the true shepherd of Israel (115). Human authority is secondary:
“Isaiah describes God’s rule over his people and the world as unmeditated. The human king, occasionally mentioned, has delegated authority and thus can never claim to be more than a servant of the Lord” (131). Thus, the prophets regularly condemn the false shepherds who fail to recognize God as the true sovereign — these false shepherds use the sheep for their own ends.

Second, God promises to send a new Davidic King to shepherd the people:
Ezekiel 34:23–24 (ESV)
23 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord; I have spoken.

These two strands: God as the true shepherd and the servant David as the shepherd come together in Christ who is the true shepherd. This culminates in the Jesus Christ of Revelation is God, King, Shepherd and Lamb.

Conclusion

As I stated above, this is a theology book — it is not a how-to blog post with tweet-able quotes. The book is hard work. Laniak sets out and develops a thesis across the entire scope of Scripture. There are footnotes and references to original languages (those always transliterated and always defined). This might scare off some readers.

But if a reader is scared off from a theology book, perhaps that man should not be a pastor.

Book Review: Creature of the Word

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

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Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church

by Matt Chandler, Eric Geiger, Josh Patterson

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The 12 chapters of this book are an overview of how a local congregation can seek to place Jesus at the center of the Church’s work:

Our churches must be fully centered on Jesus and His work, or else death and emptiness is certain, regardless of the worship style or sermon series. Without the gospel, everything in a church is meaningless. And dead.

The authors rightly note that there is a difference between knowing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and knowing the Gospel as the mainspring of the Church’s work. Over the recent years, “Gospel” has been a word to attach to any number of ideas; often with no clear purpose for the use of the word “Gospel.” The authors seem aware of that unfortunate trend and thus seek to clarify their aim:

Although the gospel does impact everything, everything is not the gospel. If everything about Jesus and the Bible becomes “the gospel” to us, then we end up being gospel-confused rather than gospel-centered. That’s why we’ve chosen to use “The Jesus-Centered Church” instead of “The Gospel-Centered Church” as the subtitle of this book.

Having made plain their intent, they then seek to give some particular substance to their thesis.

For example, in chapter 2 “The Creature Worships”, they set out some practical understanding of how worship must be centered in Christ. Being a practical book, they set out some things which could be barriers to worship & shows what worship and can should achieve (“Worship gatherings are not always spectacular, but they are always supernatural.”).

As they work their the various aspects of church life, they rightly aim at showing how the church should produce a culture centered upon Jesus — not merely pronouncements:

As a church leader, you must assume responsibility for the culture of your church. While strategy and structure are essential, culture trumps them both Peter Drucker once remarked that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If you have strategies and structures inconsistent with your culture, the culture will swallow them. But if you have a healthy gospel-centered culture, the culture will create momentum and carry an impact far greater than any strategy.

Should you read the book? It depends upon what you are after. The book is an introduction to the idea of centering a local congregation rightly upon Christ. It is written for a general audience, particularly for those who have not thought much about this issue before. This is both the strength and the weakness of the book. If you are familiar with the general theme, there will be little here which is “new”. If you have not considered this issue at all (you have just taken your current church culture as a given), then this book will raise the issue and point you in the direction you must go.

Book Review, How Not to be Secular

23 Monday Mar 2015

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James K. A. Smith, How Not to be Secular, Reading Charles Taylor

This is a book about a book. Canadian philosopher wrote an 896 page treatise on the development and nature of the secular in our current age. Smith wrote a 143 introduction, overview and “guide” to Taylor’s work.

Taylor’s work concerns our social imaginary: the sort given rubric through which we understand the world in which we find ourselves. This is not precisely a worldview, which is a developed set of ideas; it is rather a framework in which we live. The initial trajectory for the book is the movement in the West from a situation where it was almost impossible not to believe in God to the current “secular” world:

 a situation of fundamental contestability when it comes to belief, a sense that rival stories are always at the door offering a very different account of the world (10).

This is not what we usually mean when we think of “secular”. Taylor breaks the usage of the word down into three types. First, “secular” as opposed to “sacred” — as the word was used in the Medieval period. Second, secular as overt lack of religious affiliation (secular 2). Third, the primary concern of Taylor, the circumstance where belief in God is contestable (indeed all beliefs are contestable); this is secular 3.

 In our current circumstance has lead to the option of “exclusive humanism”: “accepting no final goals beyond human flourishing, nor any allegiance to anything that is beyond this flourishing. Of no previous society was this true. 23

A great part of the book concerns “how did we get here.” Taylor rejects the simplistic “subtraction stories” for explaining exclusive humanism: those stories which say that atheism is a maturity, a willingness to accept the world “as it is.” With the advent of “science” we became able to dispense with myth and superstition and walk in the light of reality. While that story is appealing to those who embrace exclusive humanism, because it makes them the hero of the story, the grown-up; it suffers from reality.

To work through this story, Taylor begins with medieval imaginary which Taylor notes includes three elements:

  1. A cosmos that pointed beyond itself to that which was more than nature.
  2. A society that saw itself grounded in a higher, a heavenly reality.
  3. “In sum, people lived in an enchanted world, a world ‘charged with presences, that was open and vulnerable, not closed and self-sufficient.” (27).

Taylor (and Smith) work through a series of historical and philosophical twists and turns which result in the modern secular age. Two things where necessary, first, these elements of the social imaginary had to be lost and a new basis had to be gained in order for meaning to continue. You see, modern secularity requires a loss and a construct:

[Rather than a mere subtraction], Taylor’s account of disenchantment has a different accent, suggesting that this is primarily a shift in the location of meaning, moving it from “the world” into “the mind.” Significance no longer inheres in things; rather, meaning and significance are property of minds who perceive meaning internally. The external world might be a catalyst for perceiving meaning, but the meanings are generated within the mind — or, in stronger versions (say Kant), meanings are imposed upon things by minds. Meaning is now located in agents. Only once this shift is in place can the proverbial brain-in-a-vat scenario gain any currency ….

To sense the force of this shift, we need to appreciate how this differs from the “enchanted” premodern imaginary where all kinds of nonhuman things mean -are loaded and charged with meaning — independent of human perception or attribution. (28-29).

The modern self is “buffered”, meaning is sealed inside:

 In the shift to the modern imaginary, minds are “bounded,” inward spaces. So the modern self, in contrast to the premodern porous self [open to meanings] is a buffered self, insulated and isolated in its interiority, “giving its own autonomous order to its life”. (30).

Chapter One of Smith’s book traces Taylor’s thesis on how the medieval imaginary was lost. Chapter Two explains how the imaginary of exclusive humanism was created: a process of locating meaning within the “universe” (as opposed to a meaning cosmos). The god of the deists eventually became utterly superfluous.

However, this loss of the transcendent, the enchantment has not worked as well as planned. The buffered self finds itself at cross-pressures, disenchantment and enchantment, transcendence and immanence press in on the self, creating a sense of loss and malaise:

 Sealed off from enchantment, the modern buffered self is also sealed off from significance, left to ruminate in a stew of its own ennui. (64)

So where does one now go for significance, seeing that the transcendent has been lost? We are forced to look for this significance within immanence, which pressures the immanence. “If the immanent self is going to be self-sufficient,, as it were, then the material has to be all there is” (72).

Since we are cross-pressured, we move about between options, we hold inconsistencies. Only the most sealed persons (the most devoted atheists and the “fundamentalist” religionists) who try to seal themselves off from all of the influence of this current, find themselves affected by the pressure.

An example, here, from the devoted Christian side may help. Imagine a Christian who suffers from some trouble, say a sad marriage. Rather than aiming at the transcendent purposes of marriage, which very well may mean the marriage in some ways does not improve (the Scriptural direction on marriage seems to even presume that one spouse may very well be difficult: how then must we live?), the couple wants only their marriage to be better. The highest goal is immediate human flourishing. While no one should look for suffering and while no one desires suffering, Christianity has almost pointed to something greater than immediate human flourishing. Consider this language from John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding:

I never knew what it was for God to stand by me at all turns, and at every offer of Satan ‘to afflict me,’ &c., as I have found him since I came in hither; for look how fears have presented themselves, so have supports and encouragements, yea, when I have started, even as it were at nothing else but my shadow, yet God, as being very tender of me, hath not suffered me to be molested, but would with one scripture and another strengthen me against all; insomuch that I have often said, Were it lawful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comfort’s sake (Ecc. 7:14; 2Co. 1: 5).

The strangeness of Bunyan’s words to modern Christians shows the extent to which even devoted Christians feel the pressure of the secular age.

Likewise, all sorts of secularists hold inconsistent positions when it comes to meaning and the mechanical universe. The number of people who hold to superstitions and astrology is striking. I once spoke with a science professor at a world-renowned institution, his colleagues where women and men at the absolute peak of “science”. He offhandedly said, “Oh my colleagues are very superstitious.”

Smith ends with a discussion of how the positions of the secular age play out in practice. We have the religious, the humanist and the Nietzschean who all have powerful critiques of one-another and often in surprising combinations (such a Taylor using a Nietzschean critique of a humanist position to great effect).

Smith’s book is excellent. While I have not read through Taylor’s work, I do have a good understanding of the basic thrust. For a work so detailed and profound, a guidebook (such as Smith’s) is more than welcome before I wrestle with Taylor directly.

As Smith works through Taylor, he does not passively recount everything. He explains, develops and often pushes back against Taylor (particularly Taylor’s reading of Reformed Christianity). I found Taylor’s questions and Smith’s help of great value in thinking through the age in which we live. Often times our current circumstance is invisible to us; only some perspective (such as the historical and philosophical perspective provided by Taylor) gives us sufficient room to think and respond.

Smith helpfully includes a glossary of Taylor’s special terms (such as “buffered self”, “fragilization” “fullness”, et cetera).

Buy and read the book. It is well-worth the time.

Book Review: In Search of Deep Faith

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Book Review, Church History

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Jim Belcher: In Search of Deep Faith: A Pilgrimage into the Beauty, Goodness and Heart of Christianity.

Jim Belcher, the current president of Providence Christian College, does something quite remarkable: he moves back-and-forth between the past and present.On a sabbatical of sorts, he took his family to Europe with the aim of fostering a consequential Christian faith in his family:

So often our children are taught that faith is about being nice and fair to all. These are good virtues. The problem is that Christianity is more than being nice or kind. It is more than personal success and happiness. It contains, Kenda Creasy Dean says, a creed, a community and a hope. It can be articulated, defended and may call us to die for it….If parents and the church communicate to our kids that the heart of Christianity is only being nice, fair, happy and successful, they will have no resources, no tools, no map in which to navigate the journey of life, particularly when suffering comes — and it most certainly will come. (31)

Belcher and his family travel to particular location. There they learn about a Christian life in that location; they visit the locale where something memorable took place, they reflect upon how that event demonstrates the working of Christ in this world. Such a back-and-forth movement, from past to present, could easily become dull, confusing or plain stupid; but Belcher handles the movement with seeming ease.

The first stop is Oxford where the family looked at the life and martyrdom of Cranmer. He sets up Cranmer’s witness against Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which is the de facto religion of even most “Christian” children in the West:

For the kids who subscribe to MTD, religion is no more than a hobby that gets abandoned in college. Certainly it is not something worth dying over. (28).

Why would Cranmer willingly die for a faith when most wouldn’t even be inconvenienced for apparently the same claims?

The family then moves on to consider the struggle of Sheldon Vanauken, “As parents we knew that if our kids were going to develop a deep faith, they first needed to understand that they are creatures of desire” (49).

In chapter three, “The Struggle Within”, Belcher considers George Whitefield, Robert Louis Stevenson and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – and Romans 7.

Chapter four, “The Weight of Glory” looks to the life of C.S. Lewis, “So this is the key to the true self, to human flourishing: finding our acceptance in God and being approved by him. It is the source of freedom, joy, contentment.” (109). This is similar to Paul Baynes, the 17th Century Puritan’s work, Brief Directions for a Godly Life, which begins with assurance of salvation. Only a knowing acceptance before God is sufficient to transform the human heart.

Belcher looks at William Wilberforce and then Van Gough — the unbelieving son of a Christian minister; the French community of Le Chambon (an entire community who protected Jews during WWII); Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer & Maria Van Trap.
At the end of the book, Belcher comes back to a question he raised at the beginning: the matter of desire and direction:

Was it possible, I thought, that there isa connection between the order of our desires and the reality of our confidence and trust? Is other words, was what we had been teaching our kids about roots, journey and destination in reality a lesson about ultimate trust? Is to desire God and his kingdom really to trust him? 269

Belcher’s book works. It is readable, engaging, enlightening, comforting. As a father, I was forced to reflect upon my own life and how I engage and raise my children. Have I led them to understand and desire the kingdom of God? Have I shown them the lives of other Christians as examples of how such a life would play out in the “real world.” The real good of Belcher’s book is his repeated demonstration that Christian faith must be consequential for how one lives, or we must wonder whether the claimed faith is a real faith.

I have not quoted out his best insights, so that you must read the book yourself to find them.