A Passionate Review

Coming Wednesday May 7,

Graeme Pitman reviews Martyn Lloyd Jones, "The Cross."

This is Graeme's second review this month, proof that Graeme either has no life and therefore reads a lot or that he is growing in the knowledge of God at a rapid rate. I know Graeme and I know that he has a life, a fairly busy one, so I am going to stab a guess at the latter one of those options.

Graeme has been vastly impacted by the Reformed writers new and old in the last few months and we are excited to have him reviewing once again this month on a fantastic book.

The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis: Surprised by Joy, Reflections on the Psalms, The Four Loves, The Business of Heaven. By C.S. Lewis. New York City: Inspirational Press, 1994, 523 pp (hardcover).

I remember when I first met Clive Staples Lewis. It was in a movie theatre, and I wondered how the actors could perfectly project my childhood fantasies. I have looked in every wardrobe in every house I entered from then on. He and I continued to meet together, mainly on paper, and I asked myself how he could so contradict Shakespeare: “What’s in the brain that pen and ink may character?” I moved past his children’s literature to his social-theological writings with asperity and anticipation. I had to forgive him for some theological gangrene, thankfully precipitate from the heart of his writing.

As I read The Four Loves, I was reminded how brilliantly Lewis assembles language into concepts that so readily resonate within a Christian. There is this atmosphere that is cultivated in your mind that can only be described by the action it invokes: An involuntary, easy smile that phosphoresces out of the eyes and is rooted in some fond memory or pleasant association.

Lewis’ work always has the flavor of a social-moral exposition that is slyly theological. In The Four Loves, he approaches human love as a natural outpour from God, and so obviously theological that it served his purpose better to address what is common to every Christian.

At the most basic, Lewis shows that every human love is not “that Love which is God,” as is the tendency in every society of every generation, even among Christians. We mustn’t be satisfied with the human love we conjure up on our own, because it is deceivingly near to God, in likeness only. No, Lewis argues, we must also draw near to God in our love (focused on Him) by approach.

The authorial intention is outlined in the introduction, which illustrates the distinction between Need-love and Gift-love argues that the presence of love does not mean the presence of God (at least in the salvific sense) as seen through love’s nearness to God by likeness or approach, and exposes demonized love. Throughout the book Lewis shows how human love relates to ourselves, others, and God.

Need-love is our reaction to basic human needs: physical, emotional, intellectual. Gift-love is the divine love, the sacrificial love. Our Gift-loves may be God-like, but they will not bring us nearness to God by approach, and the danger is to make love a god.

In the chapter entitled “Likings and Loves for the Sub-human,” he further distinguishes human pleasures as they relate to love. Need-pleasures are, of course, very physical and selfish (needing a drink of water). Their existence is only due to the desire. Pleasures of Appreciation, however, “arrive by right”. They are the unexpected, uninvited delights such as the smell of a fresh-cut hayfield or the discovery that cheesecake abounds in the dining hall. These pleasures necessitate another category of Love – Appreciative Love. Being the good Irishman that he is, Lewis illustrates this love by nature, being careful to note that “nature cannot satisfy the desires she arouses” (224). Lewis continues to emphasize throughout the book the insufficiency of every human love in itself.

I attempted to construct a circle diagram of the loves as described by Lewis, but that will have to wait for my dissertation. This primitive recognition will have to suffice: First, Lewis defines the love. Next, misconceptions are addressed, and he further explains his definition with additional metaphors and ties in previous concepts. He then explains why this love is not Love Itself – it is insufficient in that it does not perform what is promised.

The first of these loves is Affection. Affection is the most natural of the four loves. It is the “warm comfortableness, satisfaction in being together,” (230) that is most often experienced with family or lifelong friends. He calls it the humblest love, making no demands and expecting nothing but familiarity.

In the next chapter on Friendship, which Lewis calls “a rehabilitation” (254), he calls it the least biological of loves. It is “a relation between men at their highest level of individuality,” (245). “Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities,” (251). Friendship is the magnetism empowered by common ground. Its insufficiency, or one of them, is that it is not the main bond that Scripture represents between God and Man.

Eros is the term Lewis gives to being “in love,” and is the third of the four loves. It is the “uniquely human experience,” and “notoriously the most mortal of our loves,” (273). Lewis separates Eros from Venus (sexual desire) which is indeed in Eros, yet can exist independently. The insufficiency of Eros is this: “The god dies or becomes a demon unless he obeys God . . . He cannot of himself be what, nevertheless he must be if he is to remain Eros,” (274).

The final love is Charity, the crux of all the other loves. It is the chapter in which the reliance of human love on God is made manifest. We can faintly taste Love through nature, etc, but need divine enablement to know what we desire and how to relate it to others and accept it rightly. The opportunity for the transformation of natural love into Charity is always there, “supplied by clashes and troubles – (and) forces us to . . . let God turn our love into Charity,” (286).

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis is a must-read for the human molds of society. We need to know that love is not relative, why human love is ultimately not enough. We need to know that love, as Shakespeare would have it, “is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” Indeed, “the best love . . . is not blind,” (281). Human love resembles God-love, but it is not an end in itself, rather, it should help us understand “the Love that is God,” and whet our appetite for this holiness.

For a man so marked by phantasmal thought C.S. Lewis has a grip on reality and an application of scriptural principles that are positively Anselmic in that his faith so affects his understanding. Banal he is not, nor is he original. It is his manner of exploration that so attracts me and opens venues of understanding that the Christian would be unfortunate to miss.

Coming Monday April 21st

Sarah Lepisto of Dubuque Iowa reviews C.S. Lewis's "The Four Loves." I personally have never read this book so I look forward with great anticipation to hearing what "Lep" has to say.

Thats right, we call her Lep. Don't call her Leopard (which seemed like a natural extension to me until I got punched) or Leaper, or anything else, just "Lep".

Lep is an avid lover of books, she has read many classic works of fiction and only recently has discovered theology. As far as I can tell, one of her teachers required Josephus in his class on the Inter-Testamental Period and ever since then Lep has been on a theological book tear. She is currently a student at Emmaus Bible College and, thanks to her obvious obsession with books, will be helping to run their bookstore beginning next year and will hopefully continue reading in perseverance as she discovers more about the world of theological book reading.

The first time I actually had a conversation with her, she told me that she loved everything about books, their smell, their texture, their "personality".

I knew we had a reviewer at that point.

Enjoy!

Due to unfortunate time constraints Ryan Thompson's review of Al Mohler's "Culture Shift" has been postponed until May 12. We hope you enjoy the following review on an obviously not Reformed (Roger Olson and Stanley Grenz!) but still highly useful book.

Who Needs Theology?
By Stanley J. Grenz and Roger Olson. Downers Grove: IVP, 1996, 150 pp. $16 (paper).

“The American church doesn’t need theology,” he said with no effort to hide the contempt in his voice, “When the Church realizes that theology is what damages its evangelism efforts and that theology is why churches are dying then it will be ready to move on.” “Today’s people don’t want to hear about doctrines like sin and hell or hear debates about old formulas. No, we just need to give people the person of Jesus.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing but I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me. Only a few months earlier the guy sitting across from me had been my best friend. We had played poker together, drank together, smoked together, went to church together, and lived “authentic” Christian walks. We believed that Jesus would approve. We believed we were making ourselves and the gospel more likable to non-Christians. “Away with formula! Christ unites, doctrine divides!” This was our battle cry. Of course I shouldn’t have been surprised by what he was saying. But I was.

A few weeks prior to this conversation, in the midst of a haze of alcohol and pornography I had picked up my Bible in act of desperation and was astounded by what I found: propositional, theological statements that were drastically affecting my life! This was the very thing that I was struggling so vehemently against. “Break up your fallow ground!” shouted Jeremiah to the hardened Jews. “If anyone who neglected God’s Law in the Old Testament died for even the slightest disobedience, how much worse will it be for you if you neglect Jesus?” preached the author of Hebrews. “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life! No one comes to the Father but by me!” stated Christ. Naturally, these statements demanded my reflection and they demanded that I do something in my life. They also brought up wild questions for anyone who could think beyond the words on the page like, “So then, no other religion gets to God? If I abandon Christ was I ever saved or did I simply not believe in the first place? What does it look like to neglect Jesus? What is God’s Law anyway and why were people punished for even small infractions? Why does the author of Hebrews compare Christ and the Law at all? What does it look like to break up my fallow ground? How on earth does that connect to everything else in the Bible?” Indeed, these questions lead to theology, to making a coherent systematic body of tangible and objective answers so that I know which way is up and what on earth I am here for. As I sat across from my friend I had a new perspective on the Christian life and a new view of the Bible. I had discovered that the Christian life is impossible without some theology. Believe it or not! And since then I have been fighting to show Christians that, love it or hate it, once they believe in Christ they are theologians. Indeed, they were theologians even before that and they likely came to Christ on the basis of theological statements! Thankfully, I am not alone in the fight to remind Christians that theology is necessary and inevitable.

Who needs theology? This was the question my friend was essentially asking. I wish I could have given him Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson’s book with just that title. I wish I could have just given him the obvious answer right then, “Everybody does! Not only does everybody need it, everybody already has it!” For anyone struggling with what theology means in their life, whether they struggle in anger and confusion, as my friend and I did, or whether they just plain want to be introduced to what all the fuss is about, Who Needs Theology? is a great jumping off point to begin their education.

I bought the book for a class and was immediately skeptical concerning the authors. Stanley Grenz, the author of many books on Postmodernism and an outspoken Egalitarian, seemed to me to be one who undermined good theology by his very embracing of so many Postmodern ideals and an Egalitarian hermeneutic. Roger Olson, unlike Grenz I think, has a more developed theology and certainly presents a more respectable case in many instances, though I still feel his theology is not that fantastic. “Why should I listen to someone who has such bad theology on the importance of theology?” I reasoned. I was therefore delighted when Grenz and Olson proceeded to explain themselves saying,

Authentic Christian faith always inclines one toward understanding the God who has claimed our lives. And to the extent that a Christian seeks to understand the meaning of faith for answering life’s ultimate questions or for simply answering basic questions about growing in relation to God, he or she is already a theologian. You, then, are a Christian theologian.

This is the mantra of the whole book: “Everyone is a theologian!” With this as their base they address many pertinent objections and complaints applying caution where caution is necessary (“Watch out for folk theology!”) and winsomely arguing their case for all Christians to engage in theology (“Be a reflective layperson!).

Overall, I was impressed with the coherence and irenic tone of the book. While this may be due to the fact that in Postmodernism (Grenz) everyone is tolerant of everything, I would be more likely to attribute this tone and attitude to the vast personal experience of two seasoned teachers of God’s word. I was given the impression throughout the book that these two men truly loved theology and that they had battled out their beliefs doctrine by doctrine through many years of teaching. Because of their excitement and charisma I was excitedly drawn to a deeper study of theology myself even though I am already a committed Bible and theology student myself. Indeed, the book was peppered with practical “down to earth” applications and many stories of students and curious Christians that I could easily relate to.

I was also struck by the consistent exhortation to be intellectual and reflective which should lead to growing in a warm love for Christ and a strong concern for the lost in the world. In fact I was much moved by the following words,

Good theology is never content to remain on the theoretical level; it always affects life.

This exhortation, smattered throughout the book, would do many of those in the current stream of historic Christian orthodoxy some good to hear. It amazes me how many times my friends and I have demoted the beautiful doctrines of grace, right as they are, to just a set of formulas and boxes to put God in. This is the temptation of all those who may call themselves theologically conservative and Grenz and Olson effectively battle against it.

I suppose that this would be a decent time to address some of my concerns about the book. Before I do that, I think it would be good to note that for anyone unacquainted with theology these objections certainly do not undermine the great value of Grenz and Olson’s basic thesis: everyone is a theologian and should be reflectively and joyfully engaging in theology. There are books whose contents erode the book and thesis itself and thus deservingly receive the “avoid” disclaimer on some people’s book lists. This is not one of those books. As a matter of fact, it was theological issues that received my skepticism and critique, something which should not drive the curious reader away from a book dealing with how to do theology!

My chief areas of critique land mainly upon Grenz and Olson for “slipping” their respective theologies into the book and making some unqualified statements that probably shouldn’t have been made in a book that is supposed to be presented as an objective treatment of theology for the layperson or curious Christian. Grenz’s underlying beliefs about Postmodernism come to the fore when he (and I suppose Olson since he is the co-author) define the integrative motif of Scripture as “community” and really don’t seem to leave much room for another motif. Or, perhaps, they leave too much room for another motif by simply calling their motif a “candidate” for an integrative motif. This seems dangerous to me and makes choosing a motif at all seem like an exercise in being overly cavalier.

A second qualm that I took up with the authors was that the major issue of the atonement is treated as merely, “an expression of the gospel, that speaks within a specific cultural situation.” This, as I was happy to jot down in my margin, is just plain wrong and I must say that I lose some respect for a theologian like Roger Olson (I am not surprised that Grenz was so bold) to insert this opinion, dare say sneakily, at a key moment in the book about an issue that is a terribly important issue and demote it to the level of mere “cultural expression”. I would also vehemently disagree that, “No one theory [of the atonement] ranks as the orthodox interpretation.” When one looks at the history of the last 500 years of Protestant evangelical orthodoxy one will find that yes, in fact, the overwhelming majority of Christians have held to the theory of the penal substitutionary atonement. Likewise, when one looks into the history of Roman Catholic and early church orthodoxy there were two main streams of thought, that is, the governmental and moral influence theories of the atonement, which were most certainly considered the orthodox interpretations of the first 1100 years of Christianity. To make the unqualified statements which Grenz and Olson make concerning this issue in such an “oh, by the way” fashion does not seem like a wise idea to me in a book geared for a simple readership.

Besides the occasional “slip-in” of either Grenz or Olson’s theologies, Who Needs Theology? is a wonderful and encouraging little book in the battle to tell a Christian world raised on TV and 5 second clips of entertainment that they really do need to be thinking more than an inch in front of their faces and ought not be so light and fluffy in their pursuit of God. I now disagree with my friend more than ever that what the American church needs (and what they cannot avoid even if they wanted to) is. . .theology! I believe that the authors have effectively communicated their point and that this book should be a book that everyone from the fresh convert to the seasoned reader ought to have on their shelf.
Happy reading!

Coming April 15

Ryan Thompson will review R. Albert Mohler's, "Culture Shift." Ryan is a full-time student at Emmaus Bible College, is involved in the group some may know as the "Plymouth Brethren", and is actively engaged at his assembly in Dubuque, Iowa, where he has been found preaching on occasion.

He and his wife of two years, Amelia, live peacefully in Dubuque for now but long to one day take the gospel to foreign soil. He is an aspiring collector of books and a lover of the written word. He also became soteriologically Reformed in previous years and has thus come to love the writings of those whom he affectionately calls, "Piper and Co.", this would lead to the writings of Al Mohler and naturally to this book, the first of Mohler's actual bound and published works.

Pierced for Our Transgressions
Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007. 384 pp. $25 (paperback).

When a book's first ten pages consist of forty blurbs from some of the most respected evangelical and reformed scholars singing its praises, it's difficult to begin reading without having some sort of higher-than-normal expectation. I know I did. Having said that, the book exceeded all of those expectations. Upon finishing 'Pierced For Our Transgressions' I felt as thought I had just left a table where I had been feasting on the most royal fruits - delicious and varied – and each more splendid than the last. In a word: I left "stuffed." Stuffed and yearning to share with others this book and the truth contained therein.

If the title of the work hasn't given away it's theme, I'll give it to you here – it's on the atonement. More specifically, it's a polemic for the view of penal substitution, which states "that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin." It is a view that has been increasingly under attack from liberal theologians and the emergent/post-modern camps, and a view that, the authors argue, is fundamental to understanding salvation.

They begin by building a biblical framework for the doctrine. Their arguments are lucid and succinct, expository and logical, as they present their case through an overwhelming amount of scriptures spanning the Old and New Testaments in favor of Christ's substitutionary work. The authors wisely refrain from only expounding the biblical framework and opt rather to set the stage by introducing the reader to foundational Christian doctrines alongside their thesis, such as the total depravity of man, the gravity of sin, and some of the "harder" and "offensive" attributes of God. The centrality of penal substitution in the "theological jigsaw" is here affirmed, and they clearly affirm that neglecting this doctrine forces us to ignore or dislocate other aspects of the Bible's teaching.

A large and very valuable portion of the book is dedicated to examining the historical pedigree of the doctrine, focusing heavily on the atonement views of the patristics, both Ante-Nicene and Post. The reason for such a detailed examination of the church fathers is a response to the accusation that penal substitution is a result of the reformation and holds no historical value in the early church – an accusation which the authors plainly prove to be wrong. From Justin Martyr, through Eusebius, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Owen, Charles Spurgeon, and all the way to J.I. Packer (to name a few), the authors present this case. Though they are well aware that scripture is the final authority on the matter, they also see the value in the thoughts and beliefs of these great men of the faith.

The final portion of the book is laid out in a "question and answer" style, where the authors engage in tackling the criticisms of the doctrine. Covering dozens of questions on issues valid and vague, this 100-page section really shines. As I read through it I found satisfactory answers to objections I myself had asked concerning the "fairness", "narrowness", and "violence" of the doctrine. This section is an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to be able to defend penal substitution clearly and biblically. I concur with R. Kent Hughes when he states, "A well-thumbed copy of Pierced for Our Transgressions ought to rest on the bookshelf of every thoughtful Christian."

The book is admittedly concise, not exhaustive and maintains an excellent balance between academic and "tinker" language. If you're hungry for the life-changing truths of the cross, please consider picking up a copy of Pierced For Our Transgressions. Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey and Andrew Sach have laid out the banquet…won't you dine with us?

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Graeme Pitman finds beauty and joy in theology and creation and is latching onto Christ alone to save and sanctify him. He also wishes he could write better reviews.

Coming Monday April 7,

This week features a review from Graeme Pitman on the recently released Pierced For Our Transgressions which I looked forward to with much anticipation and even acquired 8 months before the US release date for 25 pounds out of England.

Despite the fact that Graeme looks like a punk/skater/artsy/just-rolled-out-of-bed type (which he is) he is an incredibly thoughtful Christian who reads voluminously (25 books since January last I checked) and thinks very deeply. He is highly influenced by the Puritans and the preaching of Paul Washer. He loves the study of Scripture.

Graeme enjoyed this book so much that he no longer refers to it by its title but merely by a quick, "Pierced," which right now is all you need to say because of the weight and importance of the book.

Because of his obvious affection for this one, I have decided that it would be wise to let him write about it.