Shelf Life

Marc Baer, Mere Believers: How Eight Faithful Lives Changed the Course of History . Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013. 190 pages. $22.00 Although I double-majored in English and history as an undergraduate, when I moved on to graduate school, I narrowed my focus to English. I did so, not because I...

J. Todd Billings, Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ . Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2015. $14.99/£11.99 Much of life in a fallen world consists of navigating through the fog of tragedy and suffering. Any pastor who has spent more than a month or two in any given...

Adonis Vidu, Atonement, Law and Justice: The Cross in Historical and Cultural Contexts. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2014. $24.99/£15.99 Theology does not occur in a vacuum, we are constantly reminded. The Church's doctrines do not develop in isolation from the contingencies of the...

It is rarely possible to predict with any certainty which of today's crowd-pleasers or critic-pleasers will secure for themselves a place as classics in the annals of film history--which will be taken as the defining films of their era, not merely for their cinematic qualities but for the aptness...

Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation . Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015 A few words of introduction and clarification are requisite on the front end of this review. First, given the medium of its distribution, I'...

James W. Skillen, The Good of Politics: A Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Introduction . Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014. $22.99/£16.99 A welcome addition to Baker Academic's "Engaging Culture" series, James Skillen's The Good of Politics offers an accessible, probing introduction to the...

Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from Daniel . Foundations for Expository Sermons. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012. The present volume merits attention as it brings together two issues of great interest: Evangelicalism's perennial fascination - arguably an unhealthy obsession! - with the Book of...

Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy and The Question of Canon are two very worthwhile books on different aspects of Scripture, the first doctrinal and the second historical. J. Merrick & Stephen M. Garrett. Gen. eds, Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2013) The...

Thomas Piketty. Capital in the Twenty-First Century . Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014. 696 pp. Hardcover. $24.99/£24.99 To say that Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century has become a sensation would be a bit of a cliché...

Eric Metaxas. Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery . New York: HarperCollins, 2007. 320 pp. Paperback. $10.99/£7.99 In a time when genuine heroes are scarce, a book on William Wilberforce is always welcome. Eric Metaxas wrote Amazing Grace as a companion to the...