Reviewed by Glen Scorgie. The book includes eleven essays on the form and character of Christian worship in Scotland since the earliest times. It is a welcome supplement to the standard work in the field, namely History of Worship in the Church of Scotland (1955) by William D. Maxwell, who is partisan in his treatment … Read more
Reviews
The Race: Discipleship for The Long Run, by John White
Reviewed by David Stewart. Although this is a collection of some of John White’s contributions to Christian periodicals over twenty years, the author has skillfully edited and arranged these earlier pieces, with a result that is surprisingly unified under four broad headings: Christian Beliefs; Christian Witness; Christian Discipleship; and Problems of Christian Discipleship. … Read more
Liberating the Laity: Equipping All the Saints for Ministry, by R. Paul Stevens
Reviewed by Jim Walton. The book has two basic strands to it: 1. the author’s personal pilgrimage in developing a healthy concept of lay ministry, and 2. instruction – both practical and theological – aimed at liberating the laity for ministry. … Read more
The Mystery of Marriage: As Iron Sharpens Iron, by Mike Mason
Reviewed by Mike Cheney. This book is full of earthy, meditative, and spiritual richness which evinces in the reader the clear connection between the practical and the mystical without going to great lengths to explicitly describe that connection. … Read more
Standing on the Rock: The Importance of Biblical Inerrancy, by James Montgomery Boice
Reviewed by Edmund F. Bloedow. Is the Bible “the word of God”? Or “the words of men”? Or “the word of God and the words of men combined”? Boice sets out to champion the first of these positions, the classic evangelical doctrine, the view that was believed throughout church history … Read more
Christian Renewal: Living Beyond Burnout, by Charles L. Rassieur
Reviewed by Garth B. Wilson. Excessive demands on our energy, strength, or resources may have depleted the “fuel” that keeps our lives vital and moving, but “burn out” is a spiritual matter because we are inclined to “play God”, … Read more
Battle for the Trinity, by Donald Bloesch
Reviewed by Jerry & Elizabeth Zook. This is a well-placed critique of ideological feminism, which attempts to make God an imminent goddess and resymbolize the faith in current cultural dress, which erodes and devalues Trinitarianism. … Read more
On Being Reformed: Distinctive Characteristics and Misunderstandings, by I. John Hesselink
Reviewed by J. H. (Hans) Kouwenberg. This is a fairly easy-to-read primer on the topic of what makes up the essential Reformed distinctives of the church. … Read more
Evangelicals and the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter, ed. Dean C. Curry
Reviewed by Mark Vander Vennen. This book seeks to be an evangelical response to the Catholic bishops’ substantial pastoral letter, “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response”. Frequently the several entries under each heading represent different, even opposite, positions on the arms race. … Read more
The Church and the Parachurch, by Jerry White
Reviewed by Roman Garrison. Evangelical Christianity is a broken society with conflict, infighting, and competition rivaling that of the industrial world. Evangelical local churches and para-local church groups need to labor together and encourage one another. … Read more
Cultivating Religious Growth Groups, by Charles M. Olsen
Reviewed by Chuck Congram. Olsen discovered that the most dominant factor in congregations with small group ministry was the ongoing involvement of pastors. … Read more
Metaphysics: Constructing a World View, by William Hasker
Reviewed by Robert Larmer. It is impossible in a short book to cover comprehensively so vast and complex a subject as metaphysics, so Hasker wisely confines himself to four: (i) free will versus determinism, (ii) the mind-body problem, (iii) the nature of the world, i.e., realism versus idealism, and (iv) God’s relation to the world. … Read more
Loving Enough to Care, by Earl D. Wilson
Reviewed by Norman & Kathy Baugh. The aim of this book is to encourage people to be more caring in all their relationships, to begin to recognize and to attempt to fill the needs of others. In particular, it contains a great deal of advice with direct application to marriage. … Read more
Idols of Our Time, by Bob Goudzwaard
Reviewed by Alex Zeidman. We know from Scripture that both persons and societies can put their faith in things or forces which their own hands have made. In their pursuit of prosperity, salvation, health, protection and so forth, people sooner or later create gods. But gods will ultimately destroy their makers. … Read more
Made For a Purpose: Understanding and Using Spiritual Gifts, by Chuck Congram
Reviewed by Colleen Kouwenberg. Congram’s study material is an skeleton outline of twenty-five spiritual gifts, requiring research by the leader in preparation for the sessions. It excludes the more controversial gifts of healing, tongues, miracles, and interpretation. … Read more
Summons to Faith and Renewal: Christian Renewal in a Post-Christian World, eds. Peter Williamson and Kevin Perrotta
Reviewed by David Ley. The roots of religious secularization are found in changing standards of sexual morality, an erosion of the doctrine of Christ, and an increasingly uninformed understanding of God, but the problem is not simply unbelief, but also the dilution of standards of behaviour among Christians themselves. … Read more
The Gravedigger File: Papers on the Subversion of the Modern Church, by Os Guinness
Reviewed by Alan Hartley. The revelation that the Director of Darkness, with minimal effort, has duped the church into digging its own grave, comes in The Gravedigger File, a series of classified memoranda turned over to the church by a defecting Satanic secret agent. By being uncritically identified with the modern world, the church has subverted itself from within. … Read more






