Today I'm taking a page (er, web page) out of Douglas Wilson's book (er, blog). He isn't ashamed of his Shameless Appeals ploy, and neither am I ashamed of pilfering his unashamed shameless appeals ploy.
Now that confusion reigns, back to the topic at hand: the spiritual state of the mainline denominations. Unlike some (many?), I'm not that inclined to write off the peoples of the mainline denominations to the fires of everlasting perdition. This doesn't mean I'd be content to attend a mainline church - far from it. But it does mean I continue to pray for mainliners with the fervor I pray for my unsaved friends and family, which is, incidentally, identical: for the sovereign work of God in their hearts. That they may come to see Christ as not only Love Incarnate (John 3:16), but as He Who must be obeyed (John 3:36). The mainliners may be a lot of things, but they are not beyond the sovereign, gracious, power of God, as mainline pastor Rev. Toby L. Brown personally attests.
As a matter of ethics, Discerning Reader does not provide Amazon links to those books we cannot in all conscience recommend, meaning the average Discerning Reader reader (echo echo) will not tend to check out a non-recommended book's Amazon page. However, we do post our reviews - both the ones we recommend and the ones we don't - at Amazon for the benefit (we hope) of the greater public.
Tim and I have both reviewed books concerning mainline denominations in the past year. As you might expect, we could not recommend these books. This is the Shameless Appeal: if you can spare a moment to check out our reviews of the following two books and judge whether they are helpful or not, we would be most grateful.
Tim reviewed In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God by Gene Robinson, while I reviewed Martha Grace Reese's Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism.
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