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Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz

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Wow…wow…WOW!

I’m still reeling from this book, so you will have to be patient.  Mrs. Richardson and I finished it last night, and I found it to be, in a word, astounding.  Of all the novels we’ve read together, this will go down as one of the most memorable.

Originally published in 1959, the late Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of the most profound, unsettling, haunting, effective, and brilliant novels I have ever read.  It’s a scifi cult classic, and with good reason.  I think I agree with Time magazine’s initial assessment of the book as “Extraordinary…Chillingly effective.”

I should probably call my father and apologize to him, for he has been telling me for years that I really need to read this book.

He was right.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic novel set in the future and tracing the events of the human race primarily through the lens of a monastic community in the deserts of western North America called The Albertian Order of Saint Leibowitz. The book consists of three movements dealing with three different periods of time:  the 26th century, the year 3174 A.D., and the year 3781 A.D.

The first period deals with the resulting dark ages of ignorance, savagery, and brutality following nuclear holocaust (the “flame deluge” in Miller’s memorable terminology).  The Order of Leibowitz is a monastic community determined to preserve “the memorabilia,” or the remains of the past society of men.  The second movement finds the order dealing with an increase in scientific knowledge, the beginning emergence of the human race out of the long darkness of its own ignorance, and the reconstruction of the basic contours of society.  It is, however, a time also of great strife and war.  The final movement finds the human race in a state of great technological advancement but plagued by the old, consistent malady of man’s moral, societal, and ethical corruption.

In truth, the common thread throughout each epoch, and, in my opinion, the primary concern of Miller’s novel, is precisely the problem of original sin and man’s refusal to recognize that all political and social attempts at reestablishing Eden on the earth inevitably dissipate into barbarism and, ultimately, self-destruction.

Miller was a tail-gunner in WWII, and he knew well the ravages of war.  He participated in the bombing and destruction of a famous monastery in Italy, an event that had a dramatic impact on his life and, obviously, his writing.  He converted to Catholicism (a point that must be grasped if the novel is to be understood) but later lived in adultery, became extremely reclusive, and, finally, died at his own hand in 1996.

Miller understood theology very, very well, and the book is marked by both theological depth and, at times, density.  Some readers may find the copious Latin references burdensome, but they are quite germane to the story and helpful in creating mood and context.

Miller is thoroughly Augustinian in his view of the sinfulness of man.  More than once the abbots of the Leibowitzian order pontificate on the disastrous effects of both the Fall of Man and man’s refusal to see and understand the radical implications of that Fall.  This aspect of the novel reaches its apex in the concluding thoughts of Abbot Zerchi during the second nuclear holocaust as he lay dying.

“The trouble with the world is me…Thee me Adam Man we.  No ‘worldly evil’ except that which is introduced into the world by Man – me thee Adam us – with a little help from the father of lies….’Me us Adam, but Christ, Man me; Me us Adam, but Christ, Man me,’ he said aloud.” (330)

In truth, Miller’s handling of harmatology, soteriology, and theophany in this novel are quite impressive.  Along the way, the novel also offers powerful reflections on war, technology, and euthanasia (particularly in part 3).

In many ways, it’s harder to describe an overwhelming book than a lesser one, and I find that I’m experiencing that even now.  So perhaps I should simply end with this:  A Canticle for Leibowitz is everything a great book should be.  It is thought-provoking, psychologically and emotionally engaging, challenging in the various dilemmas it offers the reader, memorable in its descriptive force, and, ultimately, expressive of the grand verities of the gospel.

This is undoubtedly one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read, and I intend to read it again.

A great, great read.

Highly recommended.

Paul Brewster’s Andrew Fuller: Model Pastor-Theologian

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My Thanksgiving-break book this year was Paul Brewster’s fascinating Andrew Fuller: Model Pastor-Theologian, a selection in B&H’s “Studies In Baptist Life and Thought” series.  Fuller’s is a name you encounter increasingly these days (as evidenced, for instance, by “The Works of Andrew Fuller Project”and “The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies”), and those familiar with the theological, ecclesial, and denominational frictions within the Southern Baptist Convention will understand why.

Andrew Fuller was a British Baptist pastor and theologian (largely self-taught) who exerted a marked influence over the Baptist church which he pastored and the association of which he was an important part.  (As an aside, Brewster’s description of the heightened collegiality of British associationalism was quite insightful).  So great was his influence, that one historian claimed he achieved a kind of de facto bishopric in the area.  His was a ministry characterized by great fruit and great controversy, the latter likely being the reason for the renewed interest in Fuller today.

Essentially, Andrew Fuller pushed back against the “High Calvinism” (read, “hyper-Calvinism”) of John Brine and John Gill.  I do understand that the contention that Gill was “hyper” in his Calvinism is hotly disputed.  It is possible that Brine’s presentation of Gill’s thought gave rise to the assumption.  It is also possible that Gill was, in fact, a hyper-Calvinist.  I’ll leave that to others to decide.

The hyper-Calvinism of Fuller’s day had essentially suffocated evangelistic efforts among 18th century British Baptists.  Gospel appeals to the lost were expressly avoided unless a lost person gave some evidence of a “warrant,” or indication that they might be among the elect.  As such, evangelism suffered and evangelistic means were avoided.

It must be understood that Andrew Fuller did not break with Calvinism per se, he broke with hyper-Calvinism.  Fuller nuanced his Calvinism into a kind of evangelistic, missionary Calvinism.  He did not reject election.  He simply rejected the notion that a warrant must be present to justify evangelistic outreach.  Fuller argued that, on this side of Heaven, we do not know who the elect are.  As such, we should hear the missionary impulse within scripture and indiscriminately offer the gospel to all people in all nations.  It is hard for us to imagine this being controversial, but it was in his day and context.

Fuller also nuanced his approach to limited atonement, arguing that while the atonement was efficient only for the elect, it was sufficient for the sins of the whole world.  As such, we may yet again feel not only the freedom, but the imperative of preaching Christ to all people, everywhere, under the biblical assumption that the blood of Christ is a sufficient payment for the sins of the world.

Fuller is also notable for his efforts (alongside William Carey) in beginning the Baptist Missionary Society, which constitutes, essentially, the beginning of the modern missionary movement.  Fuller was the society’s head at home, working tirelessly to handle the various organizational, financial, and logistical issues that arose in the execution of this important ministry.  He was, in Carey’s famous terminology, the one who “held the rope” for the missionaries while they went to the field.

Brewster reveals that some believe Fuller to have been under-appreciated in his role in the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society.  Others seem to overstate Fuller’s importance.  To be sure, William Carey’s name is rightly synonymous with the founding of the modern missionary movement, but it is only right to recognize as well the enormous role that Fuller played.  To use Carey’s terminology, what would become of those descending below if those holding the rope were not faithful?  And, by all accounts, Fuller was a faithful “rope holder,” almost obsessively so.

The current revival of interest in Fuller may be attributed in part (as Brewster recognizes) to the controversies surrounding Calvinism in the Convention today.  It is a controversy I’m disinterested in commenting on here.  Regardless, Fuller represents a possible via media in the modern controversy, showing the one side that (a) not all Calvinism is hyper-Calvinism and (b) that Calvinism in and of itself is not inherently inimical to fervent evangelism, and showing the other side that an imbalanced preoccupation with the Calvinist system, untempered by those significant portions of scripture that speak of and illustrate the worldwide missionary impulse of the early church and need to take the gospel to the nations can lead to a stifling of missions and evangelism.

A man like Andrew Fuller, and his example of passionate evangelism and missions, may serve to help temper the unfortunate rancor of the modern situation in the SBC.  To put it mildly, were the Convention populated by people as passionate about preaching the gospel of Christ to the nations as Andrew Fuller was, we may would just see revival break out in earnest in our day.

I was also challenged by this book’s depiction of Fuller’s approach to pastoral ministry.  Fuller was quite scrupulous about the need for him to be an undershepherd to the people of God.  He worked tirelessly in knowing and reaching his people, and those outside of his own church.  Fuller never seemed to coast in his pastoral duties, even though, at times, his work in the missionary society caused him to do less than he likely should have for his own people.

In all, this is a truly wonderful and insightful biography.  It’s well-written (if a tad repetitious at times) and engaging.  I suspect that anybody could read it to great profit.

William Carey’s An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens

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William Carey’s Enquiry is rightly considered the manifesto of the modern missions movement, of which Carey is considered the father.  It is a relatively brief and utterly fascinating work in which Carey sought to convince the Particular Baptists of England that the Great Commission applied as much to the modern church as it did to the original disciples who first received it from our Lord.  It is readily available online and will likely serve the modern reader as much, if not more, than it served the original readers of the 19th century.  I do regret not having read this entire work until now.  In addition to being a seminal missiological text, it is compelling, articular, insightful, and convicting.

Carey argued in the Enquiry that the missionary imperative of the Great Commission is as binding today as its calls for baptism and the making of disciples is.  Furthermore, he found in Christ’s words “lo, I am with you always” an implicit akcnowledgment that the Commission is transgenerational in its calling (i.e., it applies until “the end of the age”).

Parts of the Enquiry will seem almost quaint to the modern evangelical, accustomed to large missions boards as we are.  For instance, Carey argued that missionaries would simply have to commit to learning languages, something, he said, that could be fairly easily done in the space of a year or two.  Furthermore, missionaries on the field would need only a small plot of land on which to grow a garden sufficient to sustain them.  Most of all, Carey argued, these missionaries would need to be men of courage and resolve, unafraid of hardship or death.

I was struck by the earnestness of Carey’s tone and the simple logic of his argument.  He pointed out that when a trading company is granted a charter, it wastes no time in pressing to the outer regions of its territory in order to establish relationships and open profitable avenues of trade.  The church’s charter, he argues, includes the whole world and eternity itself is at stake.  Thus, should we not be equally zealous in reaching the world?

Carey’s time was, in some ways, different from our own.  Even so, the same subtle (and not so subtle) arguments he heard against the missionary enterprise are prevalent today as well.  As such, William Carey’s Enquiry remains, and will remain, timely and needed.

Joe Savage’s More of God, More of Me

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For the last six weeks, our church has been working through Joe Savage’s wonderful study on the Holy Spirit, More of God, More of Me.  Dr. Savage kicked off the study by speaking at our church, and his written words have proven to be as engaging, effective, helpful, and encouraging as his preached words.

More of God, More of Me is is a 40-day study on the Holy Spirit that presents a basic theology of the Spirit with a keen eye towards the practical submission of the believer to the Spirit’s guidance and filling.  I have found the book (and I believe our church has found the book) to be balanced and appropriately challenging.  As we’ve been gathering in small groups each week and discussing the material, it’s become increasingly clear to me that Dr. Savage has produced an extremely effective tool here that any church would likely benefit from studying.  The material has provoked a great deal of insightful and helpful discussion, and it has struck just the right chord with our church.

Baptists often seem to have a woefully inadequate approach to the Holy Spirit, varying from neglect to excessive preoccupation.  Because of this, balanced and biblical material on the Spirit is most helpful.  To this end, Joe Savage’s book must be judged a great success.

This book is well worth the cost and time.  Highly recommended!

Christopher Buckley’s Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir

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Losing Mum and Pup is Christopher Buckley’s memoir about the experience of losing both of his parents within a one year period.  Buckley is the only son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr. (WFB) and Priscilla Buckley.  Christopher is a famous author in his own right, writing primarily comic novels.  I know much less about Christopher than I do WFB (and I certainly don’t claim to know just lots and lots about WFB!), but what he’s written here is a fascinating, troubling, hilarious, and, at times, pitiful depiction of the death of a famous man and his almost equally famous wife.

I’ve been a big fan of WFB for a long time, as I suppose most people who are politically conservative are to varying extents.  I’ve never drunk the WFB koolaid, mind you, and I have likewise found reasons to disagree with him here and there over the years.  But WFB was an absolutely fascinating figure with an enthralling command of the english language.  One of the greatest reads I ever had was his collection of speeches, Let Us Talk of Many Things.  Also, if you ever saw Buckley on Firing Line or have seen him on interviews, you know that his unique cadence of speech, his verbal tics, and his unique viewpoints made him a man worthy of consideration, if not always agreement.

Christopher Buckley’s memoir paints a picture of WFB that is part indictment, part confession, and part admiration.  I’ll give Buckley this:  while some of his criticisms of his father left me feeling uncomfortable, he managed to avoid the kind of spleen-emptying vitriolic snideness and immaturity that Frank Schaeffer lapsed into in the hit-piece he penned about his own parents, Crazy for God.

Buckley paints a picture of a larger-than-life man who had larger-than-life shortcomings, but his portrait really is couched in a kind of consistent awe and admiration at the amazing journey of being WFB’s son.

A few thoughts stand out after reading this book:

  • Fame is apparently addictive, as evidenced by the pitiful revelation that WFB had set up Google alerts to let him know of the latest news about himself on the web.  (This surprised me for some reason.)
  • Alcohol appears to have played a huge role in the life of the Buckley family.
  • Some of Christopher’s criticisms seem appropriate (WFB’s absence from key moments of his life because of his own weird impulses), others seem humorous (WFB’s absurd control of the TV remote control), and others seem petty and unnecessary.

In terms of writing, Cristopher Buckley can be side-splittingly funny.  Ask Mrs. Richardson, who guffawed (to the extent, that is, that Mrs. Richardson can ever be said to “guffaw”) through long stretches of this book as I read it to her.  (The phrase “he is a river for his people” will just about make you lose it when you read it in the context provided by Buckley in this memoir).

Tragically, however, Christopher Buckley is somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist, and the book returns again and again to the conflict between his own loss of faith and his father’s admittedly idiosyncratic Christianity.  Christopher is good friends with Christopher Hitchens (he of God Is Not Greatinfamy) and, at points, it shows.

Christopher honestly recounts his growing doubts concerning Christianity as well as his father’s efforts to keep him in the faith.  Even so, Buckley ultimately makes a break with Christianity:

“This was not the moment to break what remained of his heart by telling him that although I greatly admired the teachings of Jesus, I had long ago stopped believing that he had risen from the dead; it’s an honest enough doubt, really, but one that rather undercuts the supernatural aspect of Christianity.”

At the very least, it must be stated that Christopher Buckley does understand the theological importance of the doctrines he is rejecting, as opposed to, say, certain liberal theologians who do not.  And yet there is a kind of reserve and self-reflection in Buckley’s disbelief that is utterly lacking in Hitchens’.   For instance, Buckley seems to quote H.L. Mencken’s absurd statement approvingly when he writes:

H. L. Mencken, to whose writings Pup introduced me, was proudly atheist but wrote that “If I am wrong, I will square myself when confronted in afterlife by the apostles with the simple apology, ‘Gentlemen, I was wrong.’”

Twice in the book Christopher recounts a sense of deep wondering about whether or not his father might really be in Heaven, and twice Christopher imagines his father interceding for him with St. Peter at the gates of Heaven.

“That night, going to sleep, I looked out the window and the thought invariably came, So, Pup, was it true, after all? Is there a heaven? Are you in it? For all my doubts, I hoped he was. If he was, then at least I stood some chance of being admitted on a technicality, with the host of Firing Line up there arguing my case. I doubt St. Peter was any match for him.”

And again:

“Yesterday, I was driving behind a belchy city bus on the way back from the grocery store and suddenly found myself thinking (not for the first time) about whether Pup is in heaven. He spent so much of his life on his knees in church, so much of his life doing the right thing by so many people, a million acts of generosity. I’m—I shouldn’t use the word—dying of curiosity: How did it turn out, Pup? Were you right after all? Is there a heaven? Is Mum there with you? (Grumbling, almost certainly, about the “inedible food.”) And if there is a heaven and you are in it, are you thinking, Poor Christo—he’s not going to make it. And is Mum saying, Bill, you have got to speak to that absurd creature at the Gates and tell him he’s got to admit Christopher. It’s too ridiculous for words. Even in my dreams, they’re looking after me. So perhaps one is never really an orphan after all.”

All of this is presumably intended to be humorous, to an extent.  And yet reading this work as a believer one so desperately hopes that Christopher will come again to know that there is both a Heaven and an Intercessor…though that intercessor is not his father, but the Father’s Son.

And the Son has a made a way, even for Christopher Buckley.

A fascinating and winsome read this was.  As far as shedding light on the persona of WFB, you cannot put it down.  In terms of how it reveals where Christopher Buckley is in life, it is sad.

On a personal level, this book cautioned me as a father to value my daughter and spend the time with her that she rightfully deserves.  It also made me evaluate my own life and how I treat my family.

I don’t know that I’d recommend this book for everybody, but I’m glad I read it.

Stanley Hauerwas’ Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir

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Over the years I’ve come to love reading Christian biographies and memoirs more and more.  When I saw that Stanley Hauerwas, a Methodist theologian and professor at Duke Divinity School, had published his memoir I knew that I would eventually have to get it.  Having just finished it, I wanted to share some thoughts about the work here.

Bottom line:  what we have here is a fascinating but ultimately frustrating and disappointing book.

I came to know Hauerwas (probably like many evangelicals) through his frankly amazing book, Resident Aliens.  I was assigned that book as a seminary student at Southwestern Seminary and I have never forgotten the impact it had/has on my life.  In it, Hauerwas and Will Willimon issue a clarion call for the church’s liberation from Constantinianism and conformity.  They call on the church to be a polis within thepolis and to offer a radical, counter-cultural community in the midst of the fallen world.

I soaked up their message like a sponge, believing it then, and now, to be a faithful articulation of New Testament ecclesiology.  This shot of Anbaptist ecclesiology mediated through a Methodist absolutely rocked my world and I feel that, in many ways, it helped me understand the New Testament concept of the church in ways I previously had not.  I am, and will remain, forever grateful for Hauerwas’ work here.

Since I was first introduced to Hauerwas, I’ve known him to be an eclectic, unique, and, at times, infuriating writer.  For instance, Hauerwas is a pacifist and I am not…but I don’t think I can ever think about war in quite the same way as I did before reading him.  Oddly enough, I even used Hauerwas’ work in my little book on church discipline, Walking Together (that I found helpful material in Hauerwas on this issue is yet another indication of his appreciation for Mennonite John Howard Yoder’s work and ecclesiology).

The additional works of his that I have digested have never failed to stimulate my mind and heart and I do try to read Hauerwas whenever given the chance.

This memoir has certainly explained Stanley Hauerwas.  A few themes occur again and again:  Hauerwas’ humble and hard-working roots, his sense of being an outsider, his growing awareness of God and Christian truth, and, above them all, his utterly disastrous relationship with his mentally-ill wife (now deceased), Anne.

I was particularly struck and inspired by Hauerwas’ work ethic:

“I am often asked how I get done all I get  done. The answer is simple – I work. I get up at five every morning  and I work till six every evening. I do not waste time. If I have fifteen  minutes, I can read this or that. It is the same principle as never going  to the keg without carrying back some block [a reference to the bricklaying of Hauerwas’ youth]. To be so determined can  be oppressive for others, as well as for me, at times. Thanks to Paula I  have learned to rest – a little. But I work because I love the work I have  been given to do.”

Hauerwas is a natural born storyteller, and he does not disappoint in painting a picture of his life.  If you are interested in the inner workings of academia and the running of academic departments, you will find Hauerwas’ often dramatic retellings of the ins and outs of institutional life at places like Notre Dame and Duke absolutely enthralling.

And yet, I was disappointed with this memoir in certain very important ways, primarily in how it reveals Hauerwas as holding a vision of himself as anti-establishment while simultaneously revealing the same old tired liberal cliches.  I found one of his anecdotes to be particularly ironic:

For several years we lived next  door to Stanley Fish and Jane Tompkins. We liked them both. Stanley  is one of the most competitive and kind people I know. I loved to run with Stanley. Once, as we ran the neighborhood, I told him I knew his  secret. In spite of his criticism of liberals, he cannot help but be one. He  stopped, looked at me, and said, “Don’t you tell anyone.”

This is ironic because as I read the book I came slowly to believe this very thing about Hauerwas:  “In spite of his criticism of liberals, he cannot help but be one.”  Hauerwas would chafe at such an idea.  He is, after all, quick (and repetitive) in painting himself as a maverick:

The  challenge I have mounted against the accommodation of the church to  the ethos of modernity is my attempt to help us recover our ability to  pray to God, and to imagine what it might mean to be Christian in a  world we do not control.

And, of course, his writing in many ways bears this out.  Even so, he does so sound like one of the ever-shrinking number of mainline liberals (shrinking because their churches are shrinking) when he tells us, for instance, that he “does not like Southern Baptists” or that publishing with IVP really was a bold thing for an academic to do.  He plays his cards most clearly when he discusses the question of gay unions:

Paula often has to help me “get” what a friend is trying to tell me.  David Jenkins tried to tell me he was gay. He told me he had been invited   to live with a young man who often came to church with him. I  told him I thought that would be a good idea, because I worried that  he might be lonely. He told me he was going to march in a parade supporting   the mayor of Durham, who had signed a law against sexual  discrimination in city hiring practices. Since I thought that such a law  would be just, I commended his involvement. Paula finally had to tell  me David was gay.
I remain unsure if we can call the relationship between gay people  “marriage,” but I know that David’s friendship enriches Paula’s and  my marriage. I hope and pray for the day when Christians can be so  confident in their understanding of marriage that we can welcome gay  relationships for their promise of building up the body of Christ. That  I have such a hope and that I pray such a prayer has everything to do  with my and Paula’s friendship with David. I think, moreover, that this  is the way it should work.

Ah, yes!  How very prophetically counter-cultural of you, Stanley.  My how you’ve freed yourself from accommodationist liberalism.  One cannot help but be struck at this point in the memoir how a man who has seemingly read everything, who understands complex theological, philosophical, and ethical arguments, who wields nuance and qualification like a surgeon’s scalpel could sound so very much like the American leftist establishment in weighing in on the issue of gay marriage.  “David’s friendship enriches Paula’s and my marriage”?  There you go!  Case closed.

Let me propose a truly radical and brave position for an academic to take:  to demonstrate, like Robert Gagnon at Pittsburgh Seminary has, that the biblical witness clearly speaks against homosexual activity as sinful.

At the end of the day, I will likely continue to find Hauerwas’ ecclesiology to be radically refreshing and truly prophetic…but I have indeed lost some respect for him as a biblical thinker (something he would likely claim not to be anyway).

Finally this:  by Hauerwas’ own admission, his grasp of theological and ethical texts is much stronger than his grasp of scripture.  I do so wonder whether or not Hauerwas might not benefit from at least some expressions of the (gasp!) evangelical biblical scholarship from which he would no doubt want to distance himself.

It pains me to write this.  I’ve considered myself a fan, but, at the end of the day, it just so happens that the entity known as (in the words of Hauerwas’ late friend Richard John Neuhaus) “the rheumatoid left” is more of Hauerwas’ home than I previously wanted to believe.

What a shame.

As an aside, I find that I agree very strongly with Craig Carter’s review of the book here.  Having written my review, I note that my take on it mirrors his own in many ways.  All I can say is I apparently had very much the same journey as Carter did in reading the book, though he says what he says in a much more articulate way than I do here.  Check it out.

 

E. Earle Ellis’ The World of St. John

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Published in 1965 as volume 14 of Abignon’s “Bible Guides” series (edited, I note, by William Barclay and F.F. Bruce), E. Earle Ellis’ The World of St. John is a concise, crisply written, insightful work that explores the contextual issues surrounding John’s gospel in addition to providing a helpful summary of the contents of the gospel.  Currently out of print, used copies of the book may still be bought through Amazon and other used book sites.

It’s a short but impressive work that reveals what made Dr. Ellis the esteemed New Testament scholar that he was.  I was personally moved to look into whether or not Dr. Ellis had written anything on John because (a) I’m preparing for a sermon series through the gospel, (b) Dr. Ellis passed away earlier this year, and (c) I deeply regret that I never studied under him while a student at Southwestern Seminary (where he taught).  Dr. Ellis was a congenial man who I spoke to a few times while passing him in the hallways of Southwestern, but my knowledge of him has come mainly from others as well as from my (admittedly limited) reading of his work.

Ellis gives a thoughtful and judicious consideration of the issues surrounding Johannine authorship, the purpose of the book, and the author’s interactions with Jewish and Greek thought.  Ellis views the gospel as having been written to a church comprised of Jewish and Gentile Christians.  Furthermore, he sees the gospel as a response to an overemphasis on eschatology by some in the early church  (to the detriment of a proper understanding of Christ’s presence in the church) as well as to an overemphasis on the institutionalization of the church (to the detriment of a proper understanding of the believer’s own relationship with Jesus Christ).  Along the way, he fleshes out his thesis with interesting and helpful insights into the book itself.  Furthermore, he offers a helpful outline of the gospel.

If you, like me, are of the opinion that we should not resign ourselves to those works that just happen to still be in print or that just happen to be on the shelves of Lifeway, then you’ll see the merit of considering works like this.  I know nothing of the rest of the series, but I would think it would be quite helpful as well.

David Bentley Hart’s Atheist Delusions

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How exactly am I to describe Hart’s Atheist Delusions?  It has affected me like few things I’ve ever read, and, in truth, I’m still reeling a bit from reading it.  Hart is a Greek Orthodox theologian and philosopher who seems to have had his fill of the atheistic platitudes of the so-called “new” school of atheists.  And yet, Hart is concerned with much more than merely refuting the village atheism of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet, Harris, et al.  In fact, he’s concerned with levying a broadside against the historical and philosophical presuppositions of modernity itself.

Hart is writing primarily as a historian here, and he does so with ferocious aplomb.  He is given to grand dismissive statements, but then he demonstrates through careful historical investigations that he has done the hard work necessary to make such  generalizations.  But the book is far from a pastiche of generalizations.  On the contrary, it is an historical tour de force examining the realities behind the new atheists’, and modernity’s, favorite talking points.

Hart’s thesis is that modernity is casting off perhaps human history’s only true revolution:  Christianity.  However, in order to cast it off, it must live parasitically off of the host it presumes to hate.  One of the ways that modernity seeks to cast off Christianity is to recast the Christian story as one of largely unchecked ignorance, violence, and cultural atrophy.  Hart seeks to demonstrate contra this modern myth that Christianity, while far from living up consistently to its own ideals (something that pretty much every Christian on earth will quickly admit), has in reality ushered in a genuine and earth-shaking revolution in the way we view human beings, the cosmos, and reality itself.  Modernity is seeking to cast off this revolution in favor of one in which individual autonomy and freedom reign supreme as the summa of modern existence.  But in order even to idolize this ideal, modernity must distort the raw stuff it inherited from the Christian woldview in the first place.

Hart is at his best debunking the tawdry misrepresentations of the Christian story that many of the atheist evangelists offer as history (You mean Christianity doesn’t hate knowledge, stifle cultural advance, lead to war, and poison pretty much everything?).  Hart seems to relish his task of critiquing the old canards.  His writing is erudite, perceptive, and even humorous at points.

I especially appreciated Hart’s diagnosis of modernity, his discussion of the humanitarian impulse of early Christianity, his reflections concerning Christianity’s impact on the idea of “the person,” his thoughts on the Christian concept of “joy,” and his level-headed examination of Christianity and slavery in particular.

All of this is offered (thankfully) without the cheerleading and white-washing with which some apologists seek to exonerate historic Christianity.  Hart’s arguments are careful, balanced, measured, and bolstered by an impressive array of primary documentation and historical reconstruction.

Hart’s book is not without its problems.  I thought his take on John 1:1 was less than persuasive and some of his higher-critical assumptions were as well.

That being said, Hart’s work is one that ought not be missed.  You will be challenged and educated by this book.  I intend to begin re-reading it very soon.

If you read only one book this year, read Hart’s.

 

Greg Gilbert’s What is the Gospel?

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With the publication of Greg Gilbert’s What Is The Gospel?, IX Marks further solidifies its reputation as a provider of consistently accessible, helpful, and important works for the church.  I think “the little IX Marks books” (for lack of a better term – referring, of course, to the series of short books that IX Marks has put out through Crossway) never seem to fail in bringing stimulating, though provoking, and  clear teaching on subjects of great importance.  Of course, no subject is as important is the gospel, and Greg Gilbert’s handling of that subject in these 121 pages of text is admirable and worthy of consideration.

Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of current-day Evangelicalism will know that “the gospel” is the great conversation piece of the day.  Of course, it ought always to be the center of our affections and attentions and the core of our efforts in the world, but the prevelance of these conversations, and perhaps even the appearance of a book by this title, reveals a fundamental problem in Evangelical Christendom today:  namely, confusion on the definition of “the gospel.”

How widespread this confusion is, it’s hard to say.  I note that R.C. Sproul mentioned at this year’s Founders breakfast in Orlando that “the vast majority” of Evangelicals do not know what the gospel is.  Truth be told, I’m as pessimistic as the next guy on the state of the church today, but that’s a very alarming thing to say and I do rather hope that Sproul is wrong.  Regardless, it’s a huge dilemma, and a life-threatening one for the church today.  The gospel, after all, is the sine qua non of the church, and we must forever re-articulate its meaning.

To this end, Gilbert’s book is very helpful.  It would be ideal for Sunday School classes and small group studies, I should think, but also as a helpful devotional exercise for any believer.  In truth, what we have here is a compact but clear theology of the gospel.  Gilbert argues for penal substitutionary atonement.  I agree, though others who call themselves Evangelicals may not.  But I do increasingly feel that whatever the merits of other atonement approaches are (and many indeed do have merit!), substitution is at the very heart of the gospel and has the strongest explanatory power for understanding the cross, the gospel, and the New Testament.

Gilbert gives a very convincing argument for original sin and helpfully pinpoints some of the weaknesses of our modern approaches to harmartology (we seem to believe in “sins” but not “sin”).  Furthermore, I appreciated his chapter on the Kingdom and thought that was a welcome inclusion in a book about the gospel.

In all, this is a well-done primer on the gospel.  Check it out.

 

Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola’s Jesus Manifesto

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If doxology makes the best theology, then Sweet and Viola’s Jesus Manifesto is very good theology indeed.  This book is bathed in doxology.  At times, it outright soars in delight over its subject, Jesus the Christ.  It is, in many ways, a grand Christological hymn.  It is also a clarion call to the church to see Christology firmly restored to the center of her life.

Sweet and Viola are rightly bemoaning the captivity of the church to the countless fads and rabbit trails that so grab her attention.  What makes all of this so lamentable is that many of these fads and rabbit trails are bathed in the language of Christian orthodoxy…are bathed, that is, in the name of Christ.  But putting the name of Christ on an essentially man-centered effort does not make for Christ-centeredness.  As somebody once said, “You don’t get God by yelling ‘Man!’ loudly.”  But that is precisely what the church, in many ways, seems to be attempting. In response to this predicament, Sweet and Viola are arguing here that Christ, as He is revealed in Holy Scripture and as He is known in the life of the believer,is Himself the great gift that God has given the Church.

In many ways, this book is a kind of Christological sledgehammer against the false idols of a church age gone awry.  The authors are attempting to smash our altars with nothing less than a renewed and captivating vision of the supreme beauty and glory of Christ over all things.

The book is very well written and is powerfully moving at points.  The periodic offset quotations are a nice touch and I so enjoyed (and was moved by) the occasional forays into outright ecstatic proclamations of the grandeur of Christ.

This kind of thing fires my soul to keep Christ at the center of all things.  I am profoundly glad I read it, and I very much enjoyed being able to read the last pages aloud to both Mrs. and Miss Richardson.

Read this book!