Faith Seeking Understanding

Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930

Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1970, 328 pgs.

Summary: Ernest R. Sandeen (1931-1982) wrote careful and academic history of Fundamentalism tracing the resurgence and development of millenarianism, particularly the Dispensational variant, to the Fundamentalist movement in the United States. His theological perspective and assessment were mainline Protestant, but his facts and the tracing of historical trajectory are generally accurate. Sandeen grew up in a conservative/fundamentalist home and graduated from Wheaton and then University of Chicago.

Sandeen saw three categories of Christians involved in the maintenance and continuance of the church: Fundamentalist who were also Dispensational millennialist, conservatives, and moderate liberals (269). The conservatives were represented by the likes of Machen and Westminster Seminary, portions of the Southern Baptist Convention (264), and one would assume the Missouri and Lutheran Synod.

The founder of Dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) in creating and promoting a unique understanding of the church as wholly separate from Israel and functioning within an un-prophesied church age redefined the visible church, history, and to a great degree preaching. Further, Darby’s theological system tended to both explain and respond to the cultural changes caused by Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought and the Industrial Revolution; thus offered a ready solution to the confusion and upheaval of the era.

Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred

Yale University Press, 1997, 366 pgs.

Summary: A consideration of the psychological and political causes of paranoia within the public square. The book was written by Robert S. Robins, professor of political science, and Jerrold M. Post, M.D. “professor of psychiatry, political psychology, and international affairs.”

The book lists out seven elements of paranoia: extreme suspiciousness—“things are not what they seem to be” (8). Centrality—“the belief that the paranoid himself is the target of malevolent intent” (9). Grandiosity—“he knows the truth and conveys a sense of contempt for those so foolish as to differ” (10). Hostility—“generally hostile attitude toward the world” (10). Fear of loss of autonomy—“constantly wary of attempts by a superior force or by outside individuals to impose their will upon him, and he manifests an exaggerated independence” (11). Projection—“to presume that internal states or changes are due to external causes. . .the paranoid projector is concerned not with the observable obvious but with the hidden motives of others that are behind the observable. The projection is a compromise with reality. . .” (12). Delusional thinking—“false beliefs held in the presence of strong contradictory evidence” (12).

Martin Luther, Table Talk

in Luther’s Works, vol. 54, Fortress Press, 1967, 476 pgs.

Summary: An edited collation of various records of Luther’s table talk. It’s essentially a collection of extemporaneous comments, asides, and dialogs by Luther with his wife and many visitors on topics spanning the human experience. Each entry is numbered.

Includes everything from bawdy jokes with a translation of the German term scheise (“A Story about a Dog Who Was a Lutheran,” No. 5418), and mildly profound statements. Thus we learn in No. 5230 that Luther was a traducianist on the matter of the soul and his opinion of women with small breasts ability to nurse children.

Luther’s stupidity in supporting bigamy for Landgrave Philip of Hesse is batted back and forth. And there is a brief suggestion on how to preach: “First, you must learn to go up to the pulpit. Second, you must know that you should stay for a time. Third, you must learn to get down again” (No. 5171b).

Benefits/Detriments: Interesting, lively, and entertaining. More for grasping Luther’s personality than any profound insight into Luther’s thought. Katie proves herself to be a witty and careful theologian in her own right.

Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification

Lafayette, Sovereign Grace Publisher, Inc, 2001, pg. 136.

Summary: Walter Marshall (1628-1679) was a little-known Puritan/Congregationalist writer who struggled to have a sense security in his salvation because of the prevailing articulation of the gospel by the Roman Catholics, Quakers, the Anglicans, and his fellow Puritans. In attempting to halt the rise of antinomianism and social discord many Christians had begun to preach moralism. Ultimately, Marshall concluded that a religion of moralism is the default setting of the flesh:

The most of men, that have any sense of religion, are prone to imagine, that the sure way to establish the practice of holiness and righteousness, is to make it the procuring condition of the favor of God, and all happiness. This may appear by the various false religions that have prevailed most in the world. In this way the Heathens were brought to their best devotion and morality, by the knowledge of the judgment of God, that those that violate of the great duties to God and their neighbor, are worthy of death; and by their consciences accusing or excusing them, according to the practice of them (Rom. 1:32; 2:14, 15). . . .Yet, because our own consciences testify, that we often fail in the performance of these duties, we are inclined by self-love to persuade ourselves, that our sincere endeavors to do the best that we can, shall be sufficient to procure the favor of God and pardon for all our failings. . . .it is very difficult to persuade men out of a way that they are naturally addicted to, and that has forestalled and captivated their judgments, and is bred in their bone, and therefore cannot easily be gotten out of the flesh (Dir. 6, 1st para., pg. 40).

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Riverhead Books, New York: New York, 2008, pgs. 310.

The Reason for God is an urbane and winsome defense of orthodox Christian belief by Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Manhattan. The church has “six thousand regular attendees at five services, a host of daughter churches, and is planting churches in large cities throughout the world” (quoted from the back cover).

Keller’s very laudable goal is to limit unnecessary stumbling blocks to the gospel. And this is a wholesome and godly goal shared by every responsible Christian in the world. We don’t want people to reject Christianity because they don’t understand it or have been misinformed about what following Christ is.

C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga provide the philosophical backbone of the apologetics within the book. Keller also mentions the importance of Jonathan Edwards (253) in his theological development. (I must admit, I don’t see much Edwards here.)

Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation: How God’s Word Brings Light, Freedom and Action to His People

Moody Press, 2011, 197 pgs.

Summary: An encouraging word about the sufficiency and efficacy of God’s Word in the local church. Accessible, biblical, bold, transparent, and thoughtful.

Exemplar Quotes:

Let me sum up all of this in four points: God created Adam, you, and me to image Himself. To image God, we must listen to God. God’s people, by definition, are those who listen . . .(John 10:2, 25-26). God’s Word, therefore, divides. It divides the Christian from the non-Christian. It divides the Christian in half, separating the “old man” and the “new man” (35).

In the last chapter, we saw that the Word sets us free as individuals. The electric current of the Word and Spirit enters through our ears, jolts our hearts to a pulse, and bursts the iron shackles of sin. The Word saves us. Yet its work does doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t leave us as detached individuals. Rather, the Word gathers the church. Or, to say it the other way around, the church on earth is the fruit of the Word, just like a plant is the fruit of a seed that’s been sown (Mark 4:14). (95)

Hercules Collins, An Orthodox Catechism: Being the Sum of Christian Religion, Contained in the Law and Gospel

Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2014, 120 pgs.

Summary: Hercules Collins (1646/7-1702) a godly Baptist pastor in London took the venerable Heidelberg Catechism (1562) and brought it into line with The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689. His purpose was to provide the Calvinistic Baptist of England a catechism reflecting the orthodox Reformed tradition of the continent. He was especially concerned to prove that Baptists were Trinitarian and mainstream Reformed with the exception of their understanding of believers baptism and church and state issues.

The catechism has been modernized by Michael A. G. Haykin and G. Stephen Weaver, Jr.

Exemplar quote: Q. 1. What is your only comfort in life and death?

A. That both soul and body, whether I live or die, I am not my own, but belong wholly unto my most faithful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. By His most precious blood fully satisfying for all my sins, He has delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me, that without the will of my heavenly Father not so much as a hair may fall from my head. Yes, all things must serve for my safety and by His Spirit, also He assures me of everlasting life, and makes me ready and prepared, that from now on I may live to Him (pg. 41).

Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography

The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985, 253 pgs.

Summary: A solid and non-critical biography of the great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892). Warmly evangelical, accessible, and historically accurate.

Benefits/ Detriments: The embarrassment over Spurgeon not being a teetotaler and his smoking is palatable and the discussion of Spurgeon’s theological disputes often lacks nuisance. Recommended as an introduction to the great and godly preacher.

John Piper, The Pleasure of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God

Multnomah Books, 2012, 309 pgs.

Summary: A warm thoughtful meditation on what delights God. Piper carefully exegetes dozens of verses to prove God delights in being a triune, speaking, creating, holy, saving, just, sustaining, prayer answering, King. The hoped for reader’s response to God’s delight is to worship him.

Benefits/ Detriments: A delight. Accessible. Includes a careful and scholarly response to those who reject God’s sovereignty in creation and salvation in the foot notes. Twice Piper’s habit of absolutizing a single metaphor (prayer is “a wartime walkie-talkie and not a domestic intercom” [214] and “grace is power, not just pardon” [233]) could lead to confusion if applied consistently. Coming soon to Andover’s bookshelf.

Faith Seeking Understanding

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