...and we're back. Think of last week's T4G hiatus in baseball terms: a rain delay. Or something like that. This week we're batting 1.000 again with six reviews. Half of the books we reviewed were giveaways at the T4G conference.
Emerging out of three different reviews this week is the joint issue of Protestantism and Catholicism, and their attendant sub-issues of terminology and worship style. Tim Challies has reviewed David Wells' The Courage To Be Protestant, a summation, recasting, and update of Wells' quartet on the current state of evangelicalism: No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, Losing Our Virtue and Above All Earthly Pow’rs. Closely related to this theme is Thomas Howard's Evangelical Is Not Enough, which likewise takes aim at evangelicalism from the inside - in a very gentle way, I should add - even after the author's conversion to Roman Catholicism. Howard may be better known as missionary paragon Elisabeth Elliot's brother. Last but not least in this vein is Bob Kauflin's expansive but digestible work Worship Matters. While it only touches on the tension between liturgics and spontaneous service styles, it is a model of evenhanded writing on a subject fraught with tension. The subtitle is worth iterating here: "Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God." It is a book for every pastor, worship leader, wannabe worship leader, and worshiper. In case you are interested, I (Mark Tubbs) reviewed the latter two books.
Scott Lamb weighs in with a heavy-hitter from IVP Academic entitled Faith Comes By Hearing: A Response to Inclusivism, which features many prominent theologians and seeks to answer whether explicit faith in Christ is necessary for eternal salvation. He also provides a review of the animatedly illustrated and sensationally titled The Incredible Shrinking Church. But be warned - it deals with serious subject matter: the call to the gospel ministry and the faith which must fuel it.
Rounding out our six this week is Tim's review of the first book by Joshua Harris' twin brothers, Alex and Brett Harris of the Rebelution Blog. The Harris brothers have written Do Hard Things, a book designed to coax teens (and anyone else who reads it) out of the slumber of mediocrity in order to live life for the glory of God.
I am full of faith that next Tuesday we will be back with another full slate of six reviews.
