Being Real: The Apostle Paul’s Hardship Narratives and the Stories We Tell Today (Philip Plyming) The story of Corinth was a story of success. But Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about his hardships. Why? The answer lies in the cross.
Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say (Preston Sprinkle) The best thing about this book is the way the author combines truth with grace.
Collective worship in schools: some reading Continuing on the theme of schools, church schools in particular, a couple more Grove Booklets, this time about collective worship (assemblies and more).
Church schools: some reading Many children are in Church of England schools. I’ve been reading a few bits and pieces to help me to understand what church schools are all about.
Paul and Palestinian Judaism (E. P. Sanders) What are the main theses of this epoch-changing book, published in 1977?
Multi-Congregation Ministry: Theology and Practice in a Changing Church (Malcolm Grundy) Many church ministers today find themselves leading multiple congregations. But there are no obvious ‘must read’ books on this kind of leadership.
Thrive: Helping Your Multi-Parish Benefice to Grow (Pam Macnaughton) As a multi-parish vicar, I was quite excited by the launch of this book. But the key thing to know is that it is part of a wider set of resources.
The Quantum Leap—From Assistant to Senior Minister: Reflections on Navigating the Jump (Adrian Beavis) The purpose of this short booklet is primarily to tell you what to expect when making the transition from curate to vicar (or similar).
Leading One Church at a Time: From Multi-church Ministers to Focal Ministers (Bob Jackson) With paid clergy numbers falling, should we be raising up other people to lead smaller churches?
Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (Eugene Peterson) What are pastors for? Many of them have forgotten. According to Eugene Peterson, ‘The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God.’
ESV Study Bible I recently finished reading the ESV Study Bible. Here are a few thoughts about it, and about study Bibles in general.
O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music (Andrew Gant) The book covers both sides of the divide between professional (choral) and congregational music, but I focus on the latter in this post.
Body: Biblical spirituality for the whole person (Paula Gooder) This books is about integration: the integration of our embodied lives as individuals, and the integration of our corporate life as the body of Christ.
Sing a New Song: Choosing and Leading Praise in Today’s Church (David Montgomery) This book was doing the rounds in the Presbyterian circles in which I moved around the time of its publication (2000). It is still relevant today.
Reignite: Seeing God rekindle life and purpose in your church (Ian Parkinson) There are two ways of bringing a healthy church into existence. One is to start from scratch. The other is to bring renewal to an existing church.
The Fool and the Heretic: How Two Scientists Moved Beyond Labels to a Christian Dialogue About Creation and Evolution (Todd Charles Wood and Darrel R. Falk) How do we handle our differences and disagreements? For example, what about creation and evolution?
Curacies and How to Survive Them (Matthew Caminer with Martyn Percy & Beaumont Stevenson) A management consultant, a theologian and a psychotherapist discuss semi-fictional stories about life as a curate in the Church of England.
Calvin on the Christian life What does the Christian life look like in practice? Will it be easy? Will it be fun? Not according to Calvin.
Calvin on regeneration and repentance For Calvin, two things follow from faith: our lives are changed (‘repentance’), and our sins are forgiven. We ‘cease to do evil’ and ‘learn to do good’.
Just Forgiveness: Exploring the Bible, Weighing the Issues (Anthony Bash) How can forgiveness be just? How can you maintain that an action was utterly wicked, and then simply forgive, as if it didn’t matter?
A Better Story: God, Sex and Human Flourishing (Glynn Harrison) Since the 1960s, we have been living through a sexual revolution, which is build around a powerful story. As Christians, we need to tell a better story.
Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Paul David Tripp) The basic premise of the book is that God brings about change in our lives by means of relationships. This follows the principle of incarnation.
The Day the Revolution Began: Rethinking the Meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion (Tom Wright) As a result of Jesus’ death, the world is a different place. This book, from 2016, is Tom Wright’s attempt to make sense of that.
What did Jesus’ contemporaries believe about God’s grace? (Paul and the Gift, Part 2) “Grace is everywhere in Second Temple Judaism but not everywhere the same.” John Barclay examines some texts from this period to unpack what grace means.
What is grace? (Paul and the Gift, Part 1) “Grace is everywhere in Second Temple Judaism but not everywhere the same.” With this statement, John Barclay begins to clarify the meaning of “grace”.
Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (John Walton) A huge amount has been discovered about ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. What difference does this make to how we understand the Old Testament?
Calvin on the Holy Spirit and faith How do I benefit from Christ’s work? The answer given by Calvin and the Reformers is this: primarily through the Holy Spirit and faith.
Walk This Way (Ash Carter, Ros Clarke, and Lee Gatiss) If the Christian life is a walk, then how can a new believer get their bearings? This new book uses an old approach: Creed, Commandments, Lord’s Prayer.
Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship (John Piper) For Piper, preaching ought to be expository, and it ought serve worship: ‘seeing, savoring, and showing the supreme beauty and worth of the triune God’.
Reading Genesis Well: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1-11 (C. John Collins) How should we interpret the first chapters of Genesis? Are they historical? Are they poetic? Are they scientifically accurate? Are they true?
What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done (Matt Perman) This is the kind of book I should have read years ago: a Christian distillation of recent wisdom on productivity, time-management, and personal leadership.
Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology (James K. A. Smith) This final volume of the Cultural Liturgies trilogy is about how Christians should understand and engage with the world at large.
The Lost World of the Flood (Tremper Longman and John Walton) In this stimulating book, Longman and Walton claim that the Genesis flood was a local flood, but one that was ‘global in its impact and significance’.
How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil (D. A. Carson) Be prepared! That is the key message of this helpful book. When days of darkness come upon us, we need to have in place some clear beliefs to sustain us.
Who is to Blame? Disasters, Nature and Acts of God (Robert S. White) We tend to blame God for natural disasters. God is responsible for processes such as earthquakes, but it is usually humans who turn them into disasters.
The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (David Bentley Hart) David Bentley Hart’s book from 2005 is lucid, brief and profound. It amounts to a sustained attack on the idea that suffering has some kind of explanation.
Finding Ourselves after Darwin This book explores the implications of evolution for human uniqueness and the image of God, for Adam and Eve and original sin, and for the problem of evil.
Animal predation before the fall Ronald Osborn, in his 2014 book, Death Before the Fall, explores whether a ‘very good’ creation could have included elements of ferocity among animals.
Creation: A Guide for the Perplexed (Simon Oliver) Many of our contemporary problems (Simon Oliver argues) stem from the same cause: our failure to identify the world, first and foremost, as created.
Christian Theology: An Introduction (Alister McGrath) This historical introduction to ‘the systematic study of the fundamental ideas of the Christian faith’ has very little Bible, but for good reasons.
The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil I’m going to be engaging this term with Christopher Southgate’s wide-ranging book, The Groaning of Creation. Here I attempt to summarise the book.
Encountering God’s Word: Beginning biblical studies Evangelicals can face serious challenges when they are exposed to biblical studies in an academic context. This book aims to prepare students for the task.
Scripture and Authority Today ‘Authority is not a concept which has fared well in the modern period,’ writes Richard Bauckham. What are the implications for biblical authority?
Confident: Why we can trust the Bible Daniel Strange and Michael Ovey argue for the plausibility of the Bible, and for its supreme authority, based on the example of Jesus.
The New Creationism What are we to do with the apparent conflict between science and the Bible when it comes to origins? Do creationist scientific models offer any hope?
Monteverdi Vespers In anticipation of the Monteverdi Vespers in October (Durham Singers and I Fagiolini), I think I’ve found the best recording: La Compagnia Del Madrigale.
A History of Christianity (Johnson) The task of the historian is not to record the past, but to make sense of it. And that is exactly what Catholic writer Paul Johnson attempts to do.
Calvin on Christ’s person and work These chapters tell us about Jesus Christ: his divinity and humanity, why he was sent by the Father, and how he has fulfilled his work of redemption.
Calvin on Christ in the law and the gospel In our fallen condition, the law of Moses functions to show and restrain sin and to point to Christ. But for believers, it is principally a guide.
Christianity: A Very Liberal Introduction Linda Woodhead’s ‘Very Short Introduction’ tells the story of three types of Christianity: Church (bad), biblical (bad) and mystical (good).
Calvin on our need for redemption in Christ Before Calvin introduces God as Redeemer in Christ (in Book II, chapter 6), he makes us acutely aware of our need for redemption (chapters 1-5).
Wright on resurrection A few reflections on NT Wright’s 2003 book, ‘The Resurrection of the Son of God’.
Watching the English The ‘core’ of Englishness, says Kate Fox, is our acute social dis-ease. This is reflected in our use of humour, our aversion to earnestness, and more.
Calvin on providence Calvin is perhaps best known for his teaching about predestination, free will and providence. His approach to providence is both scriptural and pastoral.
Calvin on creation, angels and devils Picking up Calvin’s Institutes after a short (ahem) pause, we move from the doctrine of God to the doctrine of creation, in chapters 14 and 15 of Book I.
On the (social capital) deficit Any who are concerned about the sharp decline in “social capital” over recent decades would do well to read Harvard professor Robert Putnam’s 2000 class...
A Christian guide to the General Election: Votewise 2015 If you’re a Christian thinking about how to vote (or whether to vote) in the 2015 General Election, and if you read just one short book on the topic, th...
The first chapters of everything This recent (2014) book on Genesis 1-4 by Alasdair Paine (of St Andrew the Great in Cambridge) is a joy to read. The emphasis is on how the chapters mak...
Christian same-sex marriage? I recently read one of the most prominent books of its kind: Jeffrey John’s Permanent, Faithful, Stable: Christian Same-sex Marriage. It’s the first suc...
Steel Angels: the personal qualities of a priest The Church of England puts people forward for ordination based on nine criteria. Those criteria form the basis for this 2014 book by Magdalen Smith, who...
On feeling called to be ordained The most helpful parts of Francis Dewar’s book Called or Collared? are those dealing with the idea that you must believe that you are ‘inwardly moved by...
Ministry in Three Dimensions I’m writing this from the Bible Belt of the Netherlands: a strip running from the south west towards the east of the country, in which there are many co...
Do you feel called by God? You don’t need to! That’s the main point of Michael Bennett’s 2012 book, Do you feel called by God? (Matthias Media). From the back cover: When Mic...
Models of the Church We live in an age of ecclesiastical chaos. Never before have so many wildly different kinds of churches existed side by side in the same towns and citie...
The Provocative Church A quick post, to remind you that I’m still here, and to draw your attention to an excellent little book about evangelism and the Church, The Provocative...
The Lost World of Genesis One Continuing on the theme of creation/evolution-related books from around five years ago (1, 2), we now move across the pond to Wheaton College, Illinois,...
Debating Darwin Debating Darwin (Paternoster, 2009) is a multi-author book, seeking to debate Darwinism first on theological grounds, and then on scientific grounds. Ea...
Creation or evolution: do we have to keep getting nowhere? It is with some reluctance that I turn to the topic of creation and evolution. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot in years gone by, but I’ve tried ...
The Catholic Faith (of the Church of England) I sometimes wonder what it would have been like in the Church of England, in the days when the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) was universally used, and i...
The life and work of a priest John Pritchard is Bishop of Oxford, and has spent many years either serving in parish ministry, training others to serve in parish ministry, or overseei...
Hope in an Age of Despair (review) I had this review published in the Winter 2013/2014 edition of Green Christian, the magazine of the Christian Ecology Link (CEL). It's now on their webs...
Peter Leithart on baptism The Bible seems to attribute an astonishing power to baptism. What are we to make of this?
Paul Avis on the visibility of the Church I’m beginning to appreciate the importance of the Church as a visible community of people on the earth.
The environmental crisis (but don’t mention the warming) Some people remain unconvinced about anthropogenic global warming and climate change. I remain convinced that they are wrong, and that they have swallow...
Calvin on God Calvin isn’t bothered with idle speculation about the nature of God: Let us then willingly leave to God the knowledge of himself [which we shall do]...
Calvin on the knowledge of God and Scripture Calvin wrote his Institutes as “a key to open a way for all children of God into a good and right understanding of Holy Scripture” (p.7). So it is appro...
Calvin’s Institutes I’ve started (again) to read John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Undoubtedly it’s one of the most important books of the sixteenth-centu...
Meeting God in the materiality of Christian worship I couldn't resist a few more quotes from James K.A. Smith's Desiring the Kingdom, this time on the theme of worship: One of the first things that should...
How to get a Christian university education I finished reading Desiring the Kingdom by James K.A. Smith last week. It's a superb book, with a broad theme and a narrow theme. The broad theme is the...
Hope in troubled times We live in troubled times. Worldwide poverty, environmental degradation, widespread terrorism: the problems are massive and potentially catastrophic. As...
Green politics: policies and practice The second half of Derek Wall's The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics (part 1) deals with the policies and practice of green politics. Chapter 4 looks...
Green politics: holistic politics Halfway through reading the second of my Christmas present books, The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics, by Derek Wall (2010). Derek Wall is an econom...
Worldview, story and mission The final chapter of Al Wolters' Creation Regained (1, 2[1], 2[2], 3, 4, 5-6) is a postscript that was added for the second edition of the book in 2005,...
Regaining creation [Jesus' parable of the talents] means that ... Christians must now employ all their God-given means in opposing the sickness and demonization of creatio...
Creation regained So far, in exploring an all-encompassing Christian worldview using Al Wolters' book, Creation Regained, we've seen how all areas of reality, including a...
The Economics of Happiness (2011) Went to see The Economics of Happiness at our local Picturehouse cinema last night. The basic message: globalisation bad, localisation good. The first p...
Creation distorted Al Wolters' Creation Regained traces out the themes of Creation, Fall and Redemption, and how they shape our understanding of everything. Having looked ...
The development of creation Back to Al Wolter's book, Creation Regained (1, 2[1]), and the rest of chapter 2, on Creation. We're trying to gain a biblical perspective on the whole ...
God and Government God and Government is an accessible, recent (2009) multi-author book, aimed at stimulating Christian thinking about political issues within the UK conte...
God the law-giver and his creation Chapter 2 of Creation Regained covers the first theme of the creation-fall-redemption triad: creation. It's quite a lengthy chapter, so I'll cover it in...
WALL-E (2008) We watched WALL-E (2008) last night. It's a great story. It's about planet earth, a planet that was supposed to be beautiful—in its landscapes, in the ...
An all-encompassing Christian worldview I've been reading Creation Regained, a little book (117 pages plus postscript) by Al Wolters. It's really very good. I thought I'd share a few extracts ...
Good news to the poor and release to the captives Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (The New International Commentary on the New Testament) A substantial commentary on one of the synoptic gospels can ea...
Good News to the Poor I've just finished reading Tim Chester's excellent little book, Good News to the Poor: Sharing the gospel through social involvement. Here's a summary, ...
The Myth of Religious Neutrality I've now reached the end of Roy Clouser's book, The Myth of Religious Neutrality. Normal service will now resume, with long periods of silence punctuate...
A non-reductionist theory of reality The final chapters (11-13) of Clouser's The Myth of Religious Neutrality (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) present a brief overview of Dooyeweerd's philos...
Is God less divine than his attributes? The first part of chapter 10 of Roy Clouser's The Myth of Religious Neutrality (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) covers some previous material in more depth. ...
The effect of religious beliefs on psychology What makes me who I am? Is it the laws of physics, operating on the cells in my body? Or is it the pressures of society, forcing me into its mould? (Nat...
How do religious beliefs influence physics? We're continuing our "Casebook" in the middle of Roy Clouser's The Myth of Religious Neutrality (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), looking at how religious beliefs ...
Is mathematics religious? What a strange question, I hear you say! But if everyone's beliefs about everything are shaped by their own religious beliefs, as has been claimed, then...
How do religious beliefs control other beliefs? If I believe something because it is in the Bible, then how might that affect my beliefs about some other area of reality, such as geology or history? F...
A brief history of faith and reason 1. Religious belief controlling theoretical reason So far (1, 2, 3, 4) in The Myth of Religious Neutrality, Roy Clouser has been arguing for a view of t...
How do religious beliefs affect all beliefs? Roy Clouser's contention in The Myth of Religious Neutrality is that anyone's understanding of anything is strongly affected by their religious beliefs....
Types of religious belief The common factor shared by all religions, according to Roy Clouser, is belief in something that is "divine per se", that is, something that is "uncondi...
What is a religious belief? The claim made in Roy Clouser's book, The Myth of Religious Neutrality, is that all of life is religious, that is, that for every person, every part of ...
All of life is religious How much of your life is affected by your religious beliefs? Not much, surely? For a start, many people are not religious at all, so the answer for them...
On the shoulders of (medieval) giants What did the Middle Ages ever do for us—for science in particular? Not a lot, I hear you say? The Greeks laid the foundations, and then, after the fall ...
Alice in Wonderland (2010) Right, Mr Burton, I'd like a new film please. How about "Alice in Wonderland"? That will draw the crowds in by the title alone. What, you can make it 3D...