Shelf Life

Ian Ker. John Henry Newman: A Biography . 1988. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Due to his beatification by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, there is a renewed interest in the life and thought of John Henry Newman. Among Protestants especially John Henry Newman is enjoying something of a...

John W. O'Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council. Cambridge, MA.: Belknap Press, 2013, 335pp. £20.00/$27.95 Trent looms. Trent looms over Roman Catholicism as a grand mother who bequeathed her enduring theological furniture. Trent looms among Protestant theology and spirituality as the abiding...

Before beginning this review, I should make a confession. Prior to Noah , I had never seen a Darren Aronofsky film before. Not Pi , not Requiem for a Dream , not Black Swan --none of them (though several of his films are high on my watch list). There may be those of you, true film aficionados, who...

Jesus Interrupted By Bart D. Ehrman 304 p. HarperOne (March 2009) This review has been used by permission as appeared in WTJ 71, no.2, Fall 2009 Just in time for Easter, Bart Ehrman has (again) offered another popular-level assault on the historical integrity of the Bible. One begins to wonder how...

Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace By Iain Murray 274 p. Banner of Truth (May 2008) The Lord Jesus Christ has gifted his church with teachers and preachers in the past and for that we are truly grateful. One, whose writings I first came into contact with twenty-two years ago, was the late Dr. David...

John Frame's new book is very fine. In 25 chapters he takes the reader through a crash-course in systematics. The chapters contain many wise judgments, much sound teaching, and good emphases. When caution is needed, Frame is cautious; when boldness is called for, he is bold. Though the book'll need...

A Theology of John's Gospel and Letters By: Andreas J. Kostenberger 652p. Zondervan (2009) When I began undertaking a writing project on the seven signs of John's Gospel my first instinct was to review everything Andreas Kostenberger had written on the subject. In my opinion (and many others more...

This is a very big book! A thousand pages of detailed descriptions of sermons preached by almost a hundred preachers from the mid-eighteenth century to the present; well, almost, for the final entries are of men who died in the 1990s. Nor is Dr. Old done with this massive project for there is...

"There is no more searching test of a theology than to submit it to dramatic handling; nothing so glaringly exposes inconsistencies in a character, a story, or a philosophy as to put it upon the stage and allow it to speak for itself. Any theology that will stand the rigorous pulling and hauling of...

If poetry has any benefit at all for the Christian (and it does), then certainly one of its more valuable functions is to show us that things are not always straightforward and simple; that our lives are both complex and beautiful, both miniscule and meaningful. Poetry is, in a way, then, a...