8. 1981. Cornelius van Til. Introduction to Systematic Theology Continue reading
Tag Archives: Book review
Ten or twelve life-changing books: #7
7. 1980. Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson Continue reading
Ten or twelve life-changing books: #5, 6
5. 1979. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law
Lewis had brought me back to an Arminian, though militant Continue reading
Ten or twelve life-changing books: #4
4. 1976 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Throughout the grinding of our souls in the gears of the great Nighttime Institution, when our souls are pulverized and our flesh hangs down in tatters like a beggar’s rags, we suffer too much and are too immersed in our own pain to rivet with penetrating and far-seeing gaze those pale night executioners who torture us. A surfeit of inner grief floods our eyes. Otherwise what historians of our torturers we would be! (Vol 1, chap 4).
I can remember how passages like this made my hair Continue reading
Ten or twelve life-changing books: #3
3. 1976. G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
I list this particular work because it was Continue reading
Ten or twelve life-changing books
This is an excuse to do shorter book reviews in rapid fire. Each Continue reading
Pipa on The Lord’s Day
The sabbath principle is explained using the analogy of a beautiful park. Continue reading
Book: T. David Gordon on Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns
The surprising thing about this contribution to the debate on worship is Continue reading
The Covenanters in America: A Brief History
This is a review of the mimeographed history by D. Carson Continue reading
Gordon Clark on Music
Some people think music a primitive art because it has only a few notes and rhythms. But it is only simple on the surface; its substance on the other hand, which makes it possible to interpret this manifest content, has all the infinite complexity that’s suggested in the external forms of other arts and that music conceals. Continue reading
Book. Schaeffer: How Should We Then Live? Part 2.
We have considered Schaeffer the philosopher in part 1, now we will consider Schaeffer the historian. Continue reading
Book. Schaeffer: How Should We Then Live?
C.S. Lewis once said that marking good essays and bad essays is easy, it is the those that fall in between Continue reading
Robert Preus, Justification and Rome
This is a brief yet surprisingly thorough and lucid treatment of the issues Continue reading
Introductory criticism of Wilson’s “‘Reformed’ is Not Enough”
The book “Reformed” is Not Enough created quite a stir a few years back Continue reading
MacGregor on the Future of the Catholic Church Reformed (HCC #4)
The author was a prominent Church of Scotland man Continue reading
Berman on Law and Religion
The topic addressed in this little book is important, asking such questions as what is law? where did it come from? what are the dynamics Continue reading
N. T. Wright on the Resurrection
The thesis is that the “Easter belief” of the early Christians (a) refers intentionally to a literal, physical (not merely spiritual) raising of Jesus from the dead, and (b) the mode and breadth of this belief can only be explained on the hypothesis that that is what actually happened. The thesis is pursued in specific and detailed interaction with the Leben Jesu literature, most of which denies the resurrection. The characteristic emphasis that we would expect from Wright is Continue reading
Book: Spener. Pia Desideria
Philip Jacob Spener wrote this initially as a preface to an edition of some sermons by J. Arndt; it became popular in its own right and subsequently was published by itself Continue reading
Book: Arndt. True Christianity
Johann Arndt (1555-1621) was a Lutheran minister that was troubled by formalism or dead orthodoxy among the German people. He wrote this book, True Christianity (Wahre Christenthum) to counter this trend, arguing that mere assent to correct doctrines Continue reading
Book: Carsten. Princes and Parliaments in Germany
What does a fifteenth century German Diet have to do with American Continue reading
Book: Barnes. Prophecy and Gnosis
Review of Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988). BT 819.5 .B35 1988
Under the rubric of apocalypticism, this book weaves together a story about views of time and history, eschatology, astrology, magic and secret societies in Lutheran Germany in the century following the Reformation.
Prof. Barnes (of Davidson College) defines apocalypticism as a view of the future combining prophecy and Continue reading
Book: Neusner. A Rabbi Talks to Jesus.
In this book, Jewish Prof. Neusner interacts with Christianity Continue reading
Book: Zahn. The Influence of the Reformed Church on Prussia’s Greatness
This is a pamphlet I discovered at the WTS library containing a speech by one Adolf Zahn to the evangelical faculty of the Royal and Imperial University in Vienna in around 1871. It is interesting for two reasons.
First, it is fascinating to discover an intellectually vigorous Reformed movement Continue reading
Book. Alan G. Padgett: God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time
This book (see bibliog. at end) is a discussion of the philosophy of time, with specific attention to the question of the relation between God and time. Continue reading