Archive for ‘Culture’

November 25, 2015

God Transcendent

God Transcendent CoverStatus: Available

Book Description

J. Gresham Machen ‘was one of the most colourful and controversial figures of his time, and it is doubtful that in the ecclesiastical world of the twenties and thirties any religious leader was more constantly in the limelight’. Machen was a scholar, Professor at Princeton and Westminster Seminaries, church leader, apologist for biblical Christianity, and one of the most eloquent defenders of the faith in the twentieth century.

God Transcendent is a collection of Machen’s addresses. It shows, perhaps more clearly than any of his books, why he was such a great man. In these messages, Machen expounds the greatness and glory of God, the wonder and power of the gospel and the exhilaration of serving Christ in the front line of spiritual warfare.They show why Machen fought so tenaciously for biblical truth against error: ‘It is impossible to be a true soldier of Jesus Christ and not fight’.

This series of popular messages includes Machen’s famous address, “The Active Obedience of Christ,” delivered only weeks before his death on January 1, 1937.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
1. God Transcendent
2. Isaiah’s Scorn of Idolatry
3. The Fear of God
4. Sin’s Wages and God’s Gift
5. The Issue in the Church
6. The Letter and the Spirit
7. The Brotherhood in Christ
8. The Claims of Love
9. The Living Saviour
10. Justified by Faith
11. The Gospel and Modern Substitutes
12. The Separateness of the Church
13. Prophets False and True
14. The Good Fight of Faith
15. Constraining Love
16. The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance
17. Christ Our Redeemer
18. The Doctrine of the Atonement
19. The Active Obedience of Christ
20. The Bible and the Cross

J Gresham Machen

J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)

About the Author

John Gresham Machen was born at Baltimore on July 28, 1881, the middle of three sons born to a southern lawyer, Arthur Machen, whose brother had fought for the Confederates in the Civil War. Some time in his youth Machen came to a personal faith in Christ, but there was no dramatic conversion experience. In later years he was not even able to recall the date (4 January 1896) when he had publicly professed faith and become a church member in Franklin Street Presbyterian Church. He was educated at Johns Hopkins and Princeton Universities, Princeton Theological Seminary and the Universities of Marburg and Göttingen in Germany.

Machen taught at Princeton Seminary from 1906 until its reorganisation in 1929. Then he left to help found Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, where he served as professor of New Testament until his death from pneumonia on New Year’s Day, 1937. In 1936 Machen was instrumental with others in founding what became the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and was its first Moderator.

[See also Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (Banner of Truth, 1987); Geoffrey Thomas, ‘J. Gresham Machen’, The Banner of Truth, No. 214 (July 1981), pp. 12-20 and Nos. 233-238 (February-July 1983) .]

Source: Banner of Truth Trust

Paperback, 206 pages

Publisher: Banner of Truth Trust

Publication Date(s):

1949 (Wm. B. Eerdman’s Edition)
1982 (First Banner of Truth Edition)
2002 (Banner of Truth Edition Reprinted)

ISBN: 0-85151-355-7

Library patrons who have read this book are invited to share their comments, reviews, questions or criticisms for discussion in the comments below this post.

October 19, 2015

The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics

Bible and Homosexual Practice CoverBook Description

Gagnon offers the most thorough analysis to date of the biblical texts relating to homosexuality. He demonstrates why attempts to classify the Bible’s rejection of same-sex intercourse as irrelevant for our contemporary context fail to do justice to the biblical texts and to current scientific data. Gagnon’s book powerfully challenges attempts to identify love and inclusivity with affirmation of homosexual practice.

. . . the most sophisticated and convincing examination of the biblical data for our time. –Jürgen Becker, Professor of New Testament, Christian-Albrechts University

Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

About the Author

Robert A. J. Gagnon is Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He co-edits Horizons in Biblical Theology, and has published in the Journal of Biblical Literature, Novum Testamentum, and Catholic Biblical Quarterly.

Book Details

522 Pages
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Publication Date: September 2002
ISBN 10: 0687022797
ISBN 13: 9780687022793

Source: WTS Books

Library patrons who have read this book are invited to share their comments, reviews, questions or criticisms for discussion in the comments below this post.

June 29, 2015

Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert CoverStatus: Available

Publisher’s Description

Conversion put me in a complicated and comprehensive chaos. I sometimes wonder, when I hear other Christians pray for the salvation of the “lost,” if they realize that this comprehensive chaos is the desired end of such prayers…. Sometimes in crisis, we don’t really learn lessons. Sometimes the result is simpler and more profound: sometimes our character is simply transformed.
– Rosaria

Rosaria, by the standards of many, was living a very good life. She had a tenured position at a large university in a field for which she cared deeply. She owned two homes with her partner, in which they provided hospitality to students and activists that were looking to make a difference in the world. In the community, Rosaria was involved in volunteer work. At the university, she was a respected advisor of students and her department’s curriculum.

Then, in her late 30s, Rosaria encountered something that turned her world upside down—the idea that Christianity, a religion she had regarded as problematic and sometimes downright damaging, might be right about who God was. That idea seemed to fly in the face of the people and causes that she most loved. What follows is a story of what she describes as a train wreck at the hand of the supernatural. These are her secret thoughts about those events, written as only a reflective English professor could.

Includes a Foreword by Kenneth G. Smith

Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

About the Author

Rosaria and her husband, Kent, live in North Carolina with three of their four children, where Kent serves as a pastor in a Reformed Presbyterian church.

Book Details

154 Pages
Publisher: Crown and Covenant Publications
Publication Date: 2012

Source: WTS Books

Library patrons who have read this book are invited to share their comments, reviews, questions or criticisms for discussion in the comments below this post.

April 25, 2015

Lectures on Calvinism

Lectures on Calvinism CoverStatus: Checked Out

Publisher’s Description

The word “Calvinism” has many different meanings. In its broadest sense, as reflected in these six classic lectures first delivered at Princeton in 1898, it refers to a system of life that brings theological reflection to bear on all aspects of human experience. Like all ways of looking at the world, Calvinism offers a set of option regarding three fundamental questions of life: How does one properly relate to God, to others, and to the wider world?

Kuyper’s lectures posit that the original vision of Calvinism has merit for both today and the future. He introduces Calvinism as a system of life, traces its relationship to religion, politics, science, and art, and finally inquires into its prospects for the future.

This work is the classic expression of a vigorous and culturally engaged stream of the Reformed faith. Far from out of date, Kuyper’s work gives needed historical perspective to many conflicts still being worked out more than a century later.

Abraham Kuyper

Image by ReformationArt.com

About the Author

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was an internationally esteemed pastor, educator, author, editor, and politician. Tireless in his efforts to apply the Christian faith to every area of life, he founded the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880 and served from 1901 to 1905 as Prime Minster of the Netherlands.

Book Details

208 Pages
Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing Company
Publication Date: 1943

Source: WTS Books