John J. Bombaro
Jonathan Linebaugh’s The Word of the Cross: Reading Paul puts on display the best of contemporary biblical scholarship, eclipsing for excellence and usage his laudable God’s Two Words: Law and Gospel in the Lutheran and Reformed Traditions (2018). This collection of twelve accessible essays (including two previously unpublished) announces that a welcome champion of Reformation […]
I confess I was rather surprised at reading Professor Nedelisky’s courteous response to my review—my impression of the book was positive (notwithstanding a fault or two), and rarely have my critiques been faulted for holding the author to a standard he never intended to meet. Nonetheless, I’m grateful for the time and consideration he has […]
John Bombaro: In God’s Two Words you bring Lutherans and Reformed into conversation on the distinction between law and gospel. What is it about this topic that compelled you to choose it as a conversation piece for today? Jonathan Linebaugh: In the sixteenth century, the Protestant reformers both had wanted to have this kind of […]
“Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels” by Craig S. Keener
Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels by Craig S. Keener Eerdmans, 2019 743 pages (hardcover), $37.99 The question of the reliability of the canonical Gospels has been a central debate in New Testament studies since the advent of the German higher critical movement. Every twenty years or so, the debate resurfaces with […]
“Transhumanism and the Image of God: Today’s Technology and the Future of Christian Discipleship” by Jacob Shatzer
Transhumanism and the Image of God: Today’s Technology and the Future of Christian Discipleship by Jacob Shatzer IVP Academic, 2019 192 pages (paperback), $22.00 February 1999 Christianity Today magazine cover featured “The New Theologians” with a capture of N. T. Wright, Ellen Charry, Miroslav Volf, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Richard B. Hayes—new theologians who were top […]
The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart by Harold L. Senkbeil Lexham Press, 2019 290 pages (hardback), $21.99 After nearly three and a half decades of parish ministry and two dozen more teaching and as the executive director for spiritual care for DOXOLOGY: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel, Harold Senkbeil, trusted […]
Noteworthy social commentator and Senior Research Fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute, Mary Eberstadt, follows her 2013 landmark book How the West Really Lost God: A New Theology of Secularization with her latest imprint, Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics. Both provocative and insightful, Primal Screams stands as a clarion call […]
“American Restoration: How Faith and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation” by Timothy Goeglein and Craig Osten
Beltway insiders Timothy Goeglein and Craig Osten collaborate in American Restoration: How Faith and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation to stimulate not just Christian thought but especially Christian action toward change in American culture, and they do so with a spirit of energizing optimism amidst what they describe as the “battle for our civilization” […]
“The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West” by David McCullough
Prolific author and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, David McCullough, has issued another historical masterpiece. Highly readable and suitable for all ages and audiences, The Pioneers recounts the daring late-eighteenth century settling of the Northwest Territory, ceded by Britain to the United States following the War of Independence. To be certain, this is not the territory explored […]
With dozens of books on the reliability of the Gospel accounts on the shelves, Can We Trust the Gospels?—by Tyndale House principal and Cambridge University lecturer Peter J. Williams—distinguishes itself by its mastery of materials, high accessibility, and relevance. Williams is a world-renowned expert on New Testament texts and manuscripts (debating to considerable effect the […]
“Science and The Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality” by James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky
Best-selling author James Davison Hunter, along with his colleague, Paul Nedelisky (the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture) issue a serviceable, if not overreaching, exposé on what contemporary neuro and evolutionary scientific research has yielded about human morality. In their book, Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality, the authors correctly […]
Eric Liddell of Olympic fame, immortalized by the 1981 Hugh Hudson film, Chariots of Fire, was more far than a principled and uncompromising gold medalist—he was an inspiring husband, father, and missionary who lost his life in a World War II Japanese interment camp within China. Lutheran pastor, Eric Eichinger, with Eva Marie Everson, recount […]
If there’s a topic that doesn’t get a lot of air time in confessional circles, it’s the significance of space and place. Spaces do mean, that is, ‘places’ in their relationship to people, and times carry and convey meaning. In his book Nostalgia, Anthony Esolen wants to emphasize that places necessarily bear theological meaning, particularly […]
“Christians In The Age of Outrage: How To Bring Our Best When The World Is At Its Worst” by Ed Stetzer
Timing is everything and, if it weren’t for the massive scandals unfolding from within the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, Christians in the Age of Outrage might have had its moment. The present status of online dialogue is such that any and all rebukes toward greater civility, charity, and thoughtfulness are appropriate, and the author […]
“God’s Two Words: Law and Gospel In The Lutheran and Reformed Traditions” ed. Jonathan A. Linebaugh
In an emerging genre that includes recent titles from Brian Thomas (Wittenberg vs Geneva, 2016) and Robert Kolb & Carl R. Trueman (Between Wittenberg and Geneva: Lutheran and Reformed Theology in Conversation, 2017), Jonathan A. Linebaugh, lecturer in New Testament at the University of Cambridge, edits an outstanding contribution from noteworthy Lutheran and Reformed scholars […]