Pilgrim Theology: Core Doctrines for Christian Disciples Michael Horton (Zondervan)
Since it first released in 2011, I've been meaning to read Michael Horton's massive work of systematic theology, The Christian Faith. Well, here we are two years later, and it still hasn't been cracked open. (Funny how that happens with 1,000-page books!) Thankfully, Horton now delivers us a condensed version of that earlier work in Pilgrim Theology. Aimed at a wider audience of nontheology buffs, the book ably sketches out the basic contours of the Christian message from the author's Reformed perspective. Each of the 19 chapters comes equipped with helpful study questions, lists of essential terminology, and sidebars on key theological distinctions. And Horton, knowing his audience will consist largely of readers too intimidated to pick up weightier systematic volumes, wisely includes an excellent introduction about the value of studying theology—and the inescapability of thinking, and living, according to some theology or another. "What happens when you die?" he asks. "What's the future of this world? These are not abstract questions, but questions that haunt our hearts and minds from childhood to old age. We can suppress these questions, but we cannot make them go away. Reality forces us to bump into them."
Sent: How One Ordinary Family Traded the American Dream for God's Greater Purpose Hilary Alan (WaterBrook Press)
Not everyone can, or should, emulate the Alan family of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Which is to say: forsake the manifold blessings of a comfortable, upper middle-class American life and, convinced of God's call, resettle in tsunami-ravaged Southeast Asia. Or wherever else God's people are needed to house the homeless, feed the starving, or otherwise comfort the afflicted. But there's no doubt that many fortunate families really ought to consider uprooting themselves from all that's pleasant and familiar, perhaps a great many more than are willing to contemplate doing so. Even those of us with comparatively fewer material blessings should feel similar tugs of conscience, prone as we all are to prefer easy paths to hard. Some of the lessons related in Hilary Alan's account might seem fairly obvious to believing Christians: Serve others, not yourself. Store up treasures in heaven, not on earth. Sacrifice everything to serve God and his kingdom, rather than living for comfort and pleasure. Things like that. But then, the most important life lessons are often those we've heard before—probably on occasions beyond numbering—but stubbornly refuse to put into practice. As Samuel Johnson was fond of saying, mankind has a greater need of being reminded than of being instructed.
What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George (Encounter Books)
Robert George, Sherif Girgis, and Ryan Anderson collaborated on a much-discussed article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy defending the traditional understanding of marriage as the union of one man and one woman—characterized by permanence and sexual exclusivity, and ordered toward the bearing and rearing of children. Since the article's publication in 2010, they have kept busy answering their many critics in print and online venues alike. This book builds upon the original article and once again addresses a host of dissenting views. Evangelicals familiar with the scriptural case for traditional marriage should add to their arsenal of arguments the natural-law perspectives offered here.
But what about those who tend to slander any form of opposition to same-sex marriage as irrational and hateful? Can anything persuade them to rethink their views? The authors allude to this problem early on: "[W]e recognize," they write, "that some, having simply dismissed our view as a noxious mix of obscurantism and bigotry, will be unwilling—perhaps unable—to entertain defenses of [traditional marriage]. We harbor no illusions that those committed to shielding their ears from reasonable arguments will be reached by a book that aims to offer reasonable arguments." If anything, I'm even more pessimistic. I fear the book will do little, if anything, to make converts. But the authors can't be faulted for the wider social climate. As public intellectuals, they've acquitted themselves admirably—and he who has ears, let him hear.
