Books

Wade’s back from his hiatus, and has some book recommendations:

Here are several books I’ve just read or am about to finish.

1. What Would Jesus Deconstruct? I loved this book. Caputo is sharp, funny, and able to explain deconstruction in a constructive way.

2. The Reason for God. This is a great book for me to read. I’m a doubter and every so often I need to read a book like this to help me doubt my doubts.

3. The Fidelity of Betrayal. I think Peter Rollins is a brilliant writer, thinker, and storyteller. If you loved How (Not) to Speak of God, you will love this as well. If you hated it, then you’ll hate this one even more. His discussion of Judas as one who faithfully betrays Jesus will either set your wheels to spinning or cause you to skid off the road.

(continue reading…)

Not by itself:

Faith has absolutely no value in itself; its value lies solely in its object. Faith is the eye that looks to Christ, the hand that lays hold of him, the mouth that drinks the water of life. And the more clearly we see the absolute adequacy of Jesus Christ’s divine-human person and sin-bearing death, the more incongruous does it appear that anybody could suppose that we have anything to offer.  That is why justification by faith alone, to quote Cranmer again, “advances the true glory of Christ and beats down the vain glory of man.

From John Stott, The Cross of Christ

I’m rereading in preparation for my comments on Alister McGrath’s chapter of Four Views, and I just came across this gem:

Postliberalism has come to terms with the death of the Enlightenment, whereas liberalism, rather like a freshly decapitated farmyard chicken, stumbles pathetically and randomly across the intellectual terrain, looking desperately for an absolutely firm foundation in a world that no longer accepts its existence.

This came out of nowhere, since “postliberalism” is a completely foreign term to me. I’m not sure I’m on board with it, because, from what I’ve been able to pick up about it this evening, it stands against the existence of objective truth in doctrine.  I’ve also never thought of liberalism as attempting to find “an absolutely firm foundation,” but it’s absolutely true that liberal theology believes itself to be rooted in an epistemological bedrock outside of Christianity.  Unfortunately it’s a mirage.

So, it’s been a day or two since I did part one of this little series, on John Hick’s chapter. Well on to chapter two, a treatise on inclusivism, from Clark H. Pinnock.

The basic, one sentence description of Pinnock’s position is: “Salvation in Jesus, with an optimism about the fate of non-believers.” It’s similar to the way ELCA Presiding Bp. Hanson characterized ECUSA Presiding Bp. Schori’s position in response to an email I sent him at the beginning of last year. Both views are based heavily on the outcomes of Vatican II.

Pinnock has a lot to say that I agree with. I’m in complete agreement with the idea that the Spirit is going ahead of us into the mission field to prepare our hearers for the Gospel. I agree that general revelation and common grace exist, and are given to everyone.  I also agree with his critiques of pluralism. But there is much there that I disagree with, and plenty of confusion to go with it. (continue reading…)

I’m working my way through John Stott’s The Cross of Christ (quite slowly, I might add), and came to his chapter about the problem of forgiveness. I’ve seen quite a few different theories of atonement over the last couple of years, and since I’d never spent a lot of time thinking about it, it’s been pretty interesting to see what’s out there: from the vague atonement=Jesus=the Gospel equation from the Church of the Apostles “Theology Blog”, to the idea that Jesus’ martyr’s death was intended to move us emotionally to repentance.

In his chapter on the problem of forgiveness (Why did Jesus have to die? God could just forgive us if he wanted to.), Stott states succinctly something that I have tried to suggest to a number of people over the last few years, most of whom regarded the idea with disgust:

We can cry “Hallelujah” with authenticity only after we have first cried “Woe is me, for I am lost.” In Dale’s words [R. W. Dale in his book Atonement], “it is partly because sin does not provoke our own wrath, that we do not believe that sin provokes the wrath of God.”

I’ve said for quite some time, you can’t appreciate the Good News until you’ve gotten the bad news. Namely, that you’re a sinner, and you have no hope of saving yourself.

I worked for a long time in an environment that was focused on people’s “felt needs”.  These generally took the form of fellowship, comfort, security, confidence, stability, counseling, etc.  I always felt, and often said - occasionally with other people within earshot - that we needed to focus on the most important, and usually unfelt need, of forgiveness from God. (continue reading…)

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