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Dissecting a Suburban Exodus

Shades of White Flight SHADES OF WHITE FLIGHT: EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONS AND URBAN DEPARTURE MARK MULDER RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015 $28.95 181 PAGES In May 2015, I sat in an intense council meeting that would decide the fate of my church, Roosevelt Park Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan. The council resolved, and the church agreed, to give ourselves three months to achieve specific benchmarks so that we might discern if the church should continue on or not. We did not…
June 30, 2016
Reviews

God as the ‘Principal Clerk’ of the Market

Stories Economists Tell STORIES ECONOMISTS TELL: STUDIES IN CHRISTIANITY AND ECONOMICS JOHN P. TIEMSTRA WIPF AND STOCK $18 191 PAGES In his essay describing the good merchant, Thomas Fuller says, “For God is the principal clerk of the market.” That is, there are three people involved in every commercial transaction. His definition reflects the ethos of an earlier world view, one pervaded by Christian thought patterns. Much has changed, especially because of the Enlightenment, but has Fuller’s formula changed? Even…
June 30, 2016
Reviews

A Roadmap for the Church’s Mission

The Story that Chooses Us THE STORY THAT CHOOSES US: A TAPESTRY OF MISSIONAL VISION GEORGE HUNSBERGER EERDMANS PUBLISHING, 2015 176 PAGES $17.78 In his book The Story that Chooses Us, George Hunsberger reaches back in time and chronicles the evolution of the mission mindset as we have grown to understand it today. In doing so, Hunsberger prompts us to imagine a roadmap that reveals where we are headed. It becomes evident that if the church in the Western context…
April 30, 2016
Reviews

A Sobering Diagnosis for Christian Higher Education

A Future for American Evangelicalism A FUTURE FOR AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM: COMMITMENT, OPENNESS, AND CONVERSATION HAROLD HEIE WIPF & STOCK, 2015 156 PAGES $20 With the publication of A Future for American Evangelicalism: Commitment, Openness, and Conversation, Harold Heie, one of the giants of evangelical Christian higher education in North America, presents us once again with an innovatively constructed book. Full disclosure requires that I mention my participation in an earlier volume of similar type, titled Evangelicals on Public Policy Issues:…
April 30, 2016
Reviews

Calling Men to Be Fully Human

MAN ENOUGH: HOW JESUS REDEFINES MANHOOD NATE PYLE ZONDERVAN, 2015 $15.99 208 PAGES I cried as I read the last chapter of a book written about Christian manhood. Yes, you read that correctly. But, before I talk about the end, let me back up a bit. As a woman called into ordained ministry but having to struggle against ideas I had learned during my formative years about the place of women in church and home, I have had to unpack the…
February 29, 2016
Reviews

Tackling the Psalms in One Volume

THE BOOK OF THE PSALMS (THE NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT) NANCY DECLAISSE-WALFORD, ROLF A. JACOBSON, BETH LANEEL TANNER EERDMANS, 2014 1,073 PAGES $60 “Reflecting the combined insights and strengths of three superior biblical scholars, this book is the most complete and detailed one-volume commentary available on the Psalms”: so boasts publisher William. B. Eerdmans. Before I comment on this mammoth book and respond to that claim, honesty demands that I begin with full disclosure: I am neither…
December 31, 2015
Reviews

The Departed Who Haven’t

UP THE HILL JAMES CALVIN SCHAAP NEW RIVERS PRESS, 2014 E-BOOK $6.99 There is an appealing sense of redemption in the notion that our daily cares might extend in a purified form beyond the limits of our temporal lives. The linked stories in James Calvin Schaap’s collection Up the Hill offer several versions of that essential redemption. Most of the characters in these stories, including our central narrator, inhabit the cemetery “up the hill” from the town of Highland, Iowa;…
December 31, 2015
Actuality: Real life stories for sermons that matter
Reviews

Stories that Bring Sermons Home

Actuality: Real Life Stories for Sermons That Matter ACTUALITY: REAL LIFE STORIES FOR SERMONS THAT MATTER SCOTT HOEZEE ABINGDON PRESS, 2014 176 PAGES $14.24 (PAPER) Scott Hoezee launched this book at a festive gathering of friends and colleagues in the seminary where he teaches. Though he is a teacher of preachers and the readership for his book is pastors, the guests were not limited to them. The book assumes a lively relationship between the pastor and his congregation, and thus…
October 31, 2015
Abraham Kuyper bust
Reviews

Kuyper’s Dilemma: The Church

Going Dutch in the Modern Age GOING DUTCH IN THE MODERN AGE: ABRAHAM KUYPER’S STRUGGLE FOR A FREE CHURCH IN THE NETHERLANDS JOHN HALSEY WOOD JR. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2013 256 PAGES $78 (CLOTH) The statesman-theologian Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) left behind a rich but complicated and sometimes controversial legacy. At the height of his influence, Kuyper had already started a national daily, mobilized the Netherlands’ first modern party, founded a private university “free from state and church” and stood at…
October 31, 2015