I ran across a fascinating article on Ray Fowler’s blog.  Seems as if the new Kindle software upgrade allows you to not only view your own highlights within the book you’re reading, but the highlights of others as well.  Using the feature Fowler compiled the most highlighted texts in both the Bible and the Koran.  Can you guess the most highlighted biblical texts?  Themes?

See the top Bible verses.

See the top Koran verses.

There’s been a spate of recent critiques of The Shack (three in the last week).  I wonder why?

Most interesting (to me) was Tim Keller’s article offering his impressions of the best-selling book.  Personally, I was pleased to find him articulate similar concerns I voiced when the book came out a couple of years ago.  While I certainly understand the pastoral attraction and emotional appeal of the book, the underlying theology and the soft, cuddly, non-crunchy God who, perhaps, comforts but cannot save, left me disappointed.  So, here’s a snip of what Keller had to say.  By the way, note that Keller references a recent “devastating” review of the book to which I’ve linked – and below I link to another recent review (27 Jan 2010) of The Shack by Al Mohler, and still further below, an older and exceptional critique written by Tim Challies.  Ok, back to Keller:

Over the holidays I read a good (and devastating) review of William P. (Paul) Young’s The Shack in the most recent print edition of Books and Culture: A Christian Review (Jan/Feb 2010.) It was a reminder that I was one of the last people on the planet not to have read the book. So I did. So why write a blog post about it? It had sold 7.2 million copies in a little over 2 years, by June of 2009. With those kinds of numbers, the book will certainly exert some influence over the popular religious imagination. So it warrants a response. This is not a review, but just some impressions.

Sprinkled throughout the book, Young’s story undermines a number of traditional Christian doctrines. Many have gotten involved in debates about Young’s theological beliefs, and I have my own strong concerns. But here is my main problem with the book. Anyone who is strongly influenced by the imaginative world of The Shack will be totally unprepared for the far more multi-dimensional and complex God that you actually meet when you read the Bible. In the prophets the reader will find a God who is constantly condemning and vowing judgment on his enemies, while the Persons of the Triune-God of The Shack repeatedly deny that sin is any offense to them. The reader of Psalm 119 is filled with delight at God’s statutes, decrees, and laws, yet the God of The Shack insists that he doesn’t give us any rules or even have any expectations of human beings. All he wants is relationship. The reader of the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Isaiah will learn that the holiness of God makes his immediate presence dangerous or fatal to us. Someone may counter (as Young seems to do, on p.192) that because of Jesus, God is now only a God of love, making all talk of holiness, wrath, and law obsolete. But when John, one of Jesus’ closest friends, long after the crucifixion sees the risen Christ in person on the isle of Patmos, John ‘fell at his feet as dead.’ (Rev.1:17.) The Shack effectively deconstructs the holiness and transcendence of God. It is simply not there. In its place is unconditional love, period. The God of The Shack has none of the balance and complexity of the Biblical God. Half a God is not God at all.

Read the rest

Mohler wrote this review last week.

Finally, another fine author, and contributor to The Gospel Coalition, Tim Challies has written a thorough and an exceptionally helpful critique of The Shack.  You may view it here.

R. Kent Hughes:

Gossip involves saying behind a person’s back what you would never say to his or her face.

Flattery means saying to a person’s face what you would never say behind his or her back.

Disciplines of a Godly Man, p. 139

A good book, good food, good drink and hunting – can Christmas get much better?

Having long past reached the age where I really “want” anything for Christmas I was delighted when friends gave me gifts this week inspired by conversations and circumstances.

The good book: A Hill on Which to Die by Judge Paul Presseler.  The book was a gift from my staff.  Paul Pressler was at the center of the biblical reclamation of the Southern Baptist Convention from the hands of liberal deconstructionists.  Turns out Dwight’s brother was a once-upon-a-time roommate of the Judge and so the book was inscribed with this note from the author: “To Rev Steve Wood – With deep appreciation for your stand for biblical truth in spite of the opposition.  2 Timothy 3.16-17.”

The good food: Backbone Perleau: Quite simply one of the best dinners I’ve ever eaten.  At our Alpha Overnight Jim Johnston and and I were comparing favorite recipes (all very unhealthy) and this was at the top of his list.  Last night, after our Church 101 class, Jim gave me container of backbone perleau which he’d made earlier in the evening.  Wow!

The good drink: Laphroaig.  Enough said – well, almost.  Laphroaig, along with Lagavulin and Talisker comprise my personal trinity of single-malt whisky’s.  While each is an Islay malt (I guess, technically, coming from the Isle of Skye, Talikser is not properly an Islay malt, though it has similar characteristics) Laprhroaig is the most bracing and explosive of the three.  I lift my glass to the clergy who gave me the bottle, thanks, boys (and thanks to Willi Stewart who introduced me to this fine single malt).

Camo & ammo.  Leave it to a southern woman to know what a guy would like for Christmas.  Liz Bailey, my Secret Santa, delivered the goods with a nice mossy oak breakup fleece and a box of .30-06 ammo.  Oh yeah, she also gave me an interesting little tool called, “butt out” – which is better left undescribed – although, interestingly, there is a video (an unpleasant video) of its applicable usage.

I set a goal this past year to read one book a week.  And, other than the two weeks in Anaheim I did ok maintaing that pace checking in at 48 books read (not counting the Bible – which I think ought to be read in its entirety (at a minimum) by every Christian, every year.  You’ll see comments on most books below.

continue reading "What I’ve Read This Year"

Alister McGrath, writing in his book, Christian Theology: An Introduction, summarizes Luther – and Reformation thought – with regard to the institution of the church by saying (p.397):

An episcopally ordained ministry is therefore not necessary to safeguard the existence of the church, whereas the preaching of the gospel is essential to the identity of that church. [Quoting Luther:] “Where the word is, there is faith; and where faith is, there is the true church.” The visible church is constituted by the preaching of the Word of God: no human assembly may claim to be the “church of God” unless it is founded on this gospel. It is more important to preach the same gospel as the apostles than to be a member of an institution which is historically derived from them [emphasis mine].

Let that roll around your mind for a while.

to our bookstore, Common Grounds.

Here’s a book review of the new biography of John Calvin.  Tim Challies writes:

It is here at last. For years now I have been waiting for a great biography of Calvin—the kind of biography which I would recommend without hesitation for those who would want to learn about the life of the great Reformer. In a year that has seen the arrival of at least half a dozen biographies of Calvin, this one, I believe, stands as the best. Written by Bruce Gordon, professor of Reformation History at Yale University, it is titled simply and properly, Calvin.

Biographies of figures as controversial as John Calvin tend to be written by unabashed fans or ardent enemies. There is a lot of biography that reads like hagiography and a lot that reads like pure slander. This was the case with Calvin himself and his earliest biographers—either they were his closest confidants, singing his highest praises or they were men who feared and despised him, fabricating outrageous charges against him (such as Jerome Bolsec who, ten years after Calvin’s death, wrote an account of the Reformer’s life in which he accused him of sodomy and suggested that he had died from crab lice). Even today, many of the biographies seem to focus undue attention on Calvin’s great accomplishments without wrestling with his notable faults and foibles. This new biography is an exception as Gordon writes from a position of notable objectivity. He seems a little bit detached from his subject, almost as if he has had to become a somewhat-grudging admirer of Calvin through immersing himself in the man’s life. Throughout the book he is willing to credit Calvin for what he did so well but he is also willing to call a spade a spade, whether that means pointing out pride or temper or youthful arrogance.

continue reading "Coming Soon"

One of the consistent temptations that humanity has faced since the Garden is this: that having been created in the image of God we have ever since sought to return the favor.  A substantial step in Christian maturity takes place when we begin to seek the God who is rather than the God of our desires.  Re-reading John Stott’s wonderful book, The Cross of Christ, this week and ran across this gem of quote addressing this very matter:

The kind of God that appeals to most people today would be easy-going in his tolerance of our offenses. He would be gentle, kind, accommodating. He would have no violent reactions. Unhappily, even in the church we seemed to have lost the vision of the majesty of God. There is much shallowness and levity among us. Prophets and psalmists would probably say of us, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” In public worship our habit is to slouch or squat; we do not kneel nowadays, let alone prostrate ourselves in humility before God. It is more characteristic of us to clap our hands with joy than to blush with shame or tears. We saunter up to God to claim his patronage and friendship; it does not occur to us that he might send us away. We need to hear again the Apostle Peter’s sobering words, “Since you call on a father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives. . in reverent fear.” (I Peter 1:17) In other words, if we dare to call our judge our Father, we must beware of presuming on him. It must even be said that our evangelical emphasis on the atonement is dangerous if we come to it too quickly. We learn to appreciate the access to God which Christ has won only after we have first cried, “Woe is me for I am lost.” In Dale’s words, “It is partly because sin does not provoke our own wrath that we do not believe that sin provokes the wrath of God.

with Richard Turnbull.  Richard is the Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.  For the past 4-5 years St. Andrew’s has hosted seminarians from Wycliffe for their summer placement and I’d never had the chance to meet him.  He’d emailed me earlier in the week telling me he was coming to town and we were able to get together.  Richard gave me a copy of his book, “Anglican and Evangelical?” I look forward to the read.

Over the past week we’ve received quite a nice shipment of books into our bookstore, “Common Grounds.”  All the books below, as well as sermons cd’s, music, gifts and videos are available at a discounted price.  Stop in and check it out.

Fearless by Max Lucado

Justification by N.T. Wright

Is the Bible Intolerant, Sexist, Oppressive, Homophobic, Outdated, Irrelevant? by Amy Orr-Ewing

Saving Your Marriage before it Starts by Les & Leslie Parrott

The Marriage You’ve Always Wanted by Gary Chapman

Run Like a Girl by Kathy Vick

Knowing Christ Today by Dallas Willard

A Call to Die by David Nasser

Wisdom from Above by Campbell McAlpine

A Perfect Mess: Why you don’t have to worry about being good enough for God by Lisa Harper

The “Armchair Theologian” series.  This series by various authors give very nice introductions to some of the great theologians of the faith such as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards and a helpful book on “Heretics”.