Well I may not have blogged that much recently… there’s plenty of posts to come, some are drafted already, but alas no time… however, I have been reading around…

Should you support Christian bookshops rather than Amazon??

I have mixed feelings which I’ve been discussing on Phil Whittall’s blog here and here.

Preaching Notes

I’m trying to work out the best way to do this… I like note form rather than script… Josh Harris has been publishing some well known preachers notes… my favourites are; CJ Mahaney, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll.

Matt Chandler starts blogging

Love this guy. Loving him preaching on Luke, and pleased to hear he’s now got a blog called Dwell Deep.

Desiring God conference - The Power of Words and the Wonder of God

Piper, Driscoll, Ferguson, Kauflin, Tripp etc. check out the audio and video

Driscoll in Syndey and Jensen’s response

18 point critique of Sydney Anglicans (given that British Evangelical Anglicans steal all their ideas from Sydney, they pretty much all apply here too!)… 18 Obstacles to Effective Evangelism

Jensen gives his thoughts in response

….still coming soon will be some book reviews and the finishing off of some old posts

Mark Driscoll kicked off the Dwell London conference by explaining the gospel - highlighting the difference between the Gospel of Grace, and the Religion of Works.

Mark began by quoting Martin Luther from his lecture on Galatians 2:14 -

“The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine…. Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.”

Driscoll then went to 1 Corinthians 15, asking - What is the Gospel?

• It’s continual (now I would remind you)
• Proclamation and Explanation
• Pastoral and Personal
• Essential (don’t assume too much, preach the priorities)
• Relevant (don’t make it, show it)
• Christological - it’s all about Jesus
• Penal Substitutionary
• Biblical (it was prophesied)
• Eschatological (it has a future)

Under the PS point, Mark alluded to his knowledge of the NWA foundation, and told the story of how his church grew by 800 people on the week he preached PSA! He said that he wants to be a ‘truth teller’ - “I’d rather be hated than ignored - that’s my ministry!” Mark then moved on to look at the two enemies of the Gospel - Idolatry and Religion.

Idolatry

Driscoll quoted Luther who said that idolatry was “the sin”, and that it all came down to the first two Commandments - if we disobey the first two we have an idol, and will break the other commandments.

An idol is that which takes pre-eminence, which receives our worship. We’re all spiritual people because we all have our own definitions of heaven and hell, and the a ‘Functional Saviour’ (our idol) to take us from hell to heaven. He then goes on to reference Tim Keller who has a set of questions to expose our idols:

What are you afraid of? What do you long for? Where do you get comfort? How do you introduce yourself? Whose approval do you seek? What makes you happy/sad?

Religion

Mark started off by showing the clear differences between the Gospel of Grace and the Religion of Works:

If I obey God loves me  vs.  God loves me, his Spirit enables me to obey

Good and Bad People  vs.  Repentant and Unrepentant Sinners

What you do  vs.  What Jesus has done

He then explained the result of religion, it either leads to pride and self-righteousness (these people stay in the church), or despair at not being good enough (these people walk away from church). Rather, the Gospel ends in joy, those who receive grace are humble and happy.

Acts 17 - God commands ALL men to repent (religious and idolatrous)

Romans 1:16 - Mark reminded us not to be ashamed of the Gospel we preach, and again to notice that it goes to the Jews (the religious people) and to the Greeks (the idolatrous people)

Tim Keller has a new book coming out in October called ‘The Prodigal God‘, it’s an exposition of the ‘Parable of the Prodigal Sons’ and I get the impression that like ‘Reason for God’ it will be accessible for both Christians and non-Christians alike. It’s released on the 30th and you can currently pre-order from Amazon for around £9, I’m hoping that the Good Book Company might have it in stock at a similar price nearer the time, I’ll let you know.

Here’s a short interview with Keller about the book, and a response from Keller about the use of the word ‘Prodigal’ in relation to God.

Also, Mark Driscoll has lots of books coming out this year which has prompted the launch of Resurgence Literature publishing (ReLit). The first book was Vintage Jesus, I’ve finally got round to reading that so I’ll review it soon.

The latest books out (released last week) are a series of 4 books - ‘A Book You’ll Actually Read‘ - they’re less than 100 pages on ‘The Old Testament’, ‘The New Testament’, ‘Church Leadership’ and ‘Who is God?’. These are the square shaped ones (left). At the end of July there’s a book called ‘Practical Theology for Women’ coming out by Wendy Alsup, a deacon at Mars Hill. ‘Death by Love‘ (right) is coming out at the end of September, from what I gather it is based on Driscoll’s ‘Christ on the Cross’ series and then put in to a letter format. Finally in January 2009 ‘Vintage Church‘ (middle) is being released, subtitled ‘Timeless Truths and Timely Methods’ - it’s in the style of the Vintage Jesus book and I’m guessing will be similar to the Radical Reformission, probably with more of a focus on some of his sermon series (1 Corinthians, Nehemiah) and some practical suggestions. One more thing, they’re also publishing other non-Mars-Hill books, so far just Total Church by Timmis and Chester.

Last week I picked up some books for myself at EMA - Total Church (Timmis and Chester), Why we’re not Emergent (some American guys), and The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (Dever)… will give some thoughts when I get round to reading.

A few conferences have been happening recently, check out the audio…

Dwell New York -   Driscoll, Keller, Mahaney, Stetzer

New Attitude 2008 - Harris, Piper, Dever, Mohler, Mahaney

Basics 2008 -   Begg, Bridges, Getty, Bauchman, Challies

Together 4 the Gospel -   Piper, Duncan, MacArthur, Dever, Mohler, Anyabwile, Sproul, Mahaney

…and next week is Resolved 2008 with Piper, MacArthur, Mahaney and others!

Tonight was the first in what will hopefully be a long-term series of cafe nights at BH. I was a bit frustrated with the cafe nights that happened in the past, because it was the same as a normal service, just with chairs set out differently and some nibbles… but tonight we got rid of songs, prayers, any kind of liturgy or service order and I ad libbed at the front.

Povey spoke on the subject of exclusive beliefs and absolute truth, essentially just a rip off of Keller… speaking of which, after a review by me I managed to flog some cut-price copies of Reason for God, I have two copies left if anyone is interested. You can get Povey’s talk here…

Good news that there will be a New Word Alive in 2009, at sunny Prestatyn… but what will it be like? Well, in light of this, this, and this, I thought I would share my wishlist for Word Alive 2009…

Morning Bible Readings - Alec Motyer on Isaiah… loved him last year at Keswick on Exodus, heard he has a fine commentary on Isaiah, would love to find out what that’s all about…

Leadership seminar - Mark Dever… you could call it 9 Marks of a Healthy Church or something…

Apologetics seminar - Tim Keller… It would be cool to hear him give some practical ways to engage with culture, friends, family, colleagues in light of ‘Reason for God’

Evening Celebrations 1 & 2 - Mark Driscoll on Radical Reformission… would love to hear what he has to say about students and young people being missionaries in their culture in the UK

Evening Celebrations 3 & 4 - CJ Mahaney on Humble Orthodoxy… hadn’t really listened or read anything by CJ up until a few months ago… love it now

…and presumably Adrian Warnock will lead the Band of Bloggers seminar…?

Oh, and Team Strike Force leading the music!!

This is all a little optimistic, but just getting one of these guys would be a scoop! Look forward to hearing the details when they happen…

So chapter 1 of Reason for God, following the introduction, Keller addresses the issue that he says he hears frequently in his ministry, he sums it up with the word ‘exclusivity’. That is people taking issue with religions that make truth claims and then who try to persuade others of those claims and who refute the truth claims of other religions. The argument put against religions making truth claims is to say, firstly that all religions are basically the same - equally true (or equally false), and also to say that the divisiveness between these exclusive claims is what causes so much of the war and violence in the world.

Keller talks through the 3 main responses to the problem of religion: to outlaw religion, to condemn religion, or to keep religion private. He then goes on to explain why these responses don’t work, and are inconsistent.

Outlaw Religion - take the 20th Century, the regimes that claim religions cause war and violence have suppressed those beliefs with more brutal violence. The belief that as we advance technologically we would evolve out of religious beliefs has been proved untrue. Those countries that have tried to outlaw Christianity have failed, China being the obvious example.

Condemn Religion - that is by argument and education to make religious belief socially unacceptable. There are several objections raised in this section, “All religions are essentially the same“, “Each religion only sees part of the truth“, “Religious beliefs are culturally and historically conditioned“, and that “Religious beliefs are arrogant“. Keller in essence argues that all these criticisms find their root in unprovable, exclusive claims, and in making the objections reveal their own arrogance, and therefore hypocrisy.

Keep Religion Private - I guess this is a big thing at the moment with all the news about voting on embryo research… Keller argues that we all have religious beliefs (a set of beliefs formed to answer life’s big questions), and that whether we’d call ourselves religious or secular these ‘religious beliefs’ affect all areas of our life - the secularist still makes decisions based on religious beliefs.

There are a number of things I like about Keller’s approach here… firstly he doesn’t assume too much, he’s not specifically talking about Christianity or referencing the Bible, he’s dealing with more basic issues, yet at a level which is intellectually and philosophically robust. Secondly he’s well researched, quoting both secular and Christian academics, using the secular philosophers writings to prove his points - clever! Thirdly, he’s gracious, he exposes the folly and hypocrisy of some arguments, but does not then become proud in his writing, but urges engagement with the big questions. Finally, he’s honest, he doesn’t try and get out of the facts, mainly that religions are divisive and do cause problems!

Keller concludes with a well worked in (not just crowbarred in) explanation of the Gospel of Grace, of Jesus Christ the sacrifice for sinful humans, and the example of unity and peace in truth.

You can listen to the talk on Exclusivity from Redeemer.

Remember I said about Tim Keller doing a talk at a Google Authors event… well here’s the video from that…

The Evangelical Ministry Assembly 2008 is happening this June, 25th-28th up at St. Helen’s church in London. It’s the 25th year that it’s been running, think father has the tapes from near enough every year! The theme this year is Preaching - Why do it? What is it? and What/Who is the Preacher? The main sessions will be addressing these questions and will be answered by Christopher Ash, John Woodhouse and Kent Hughes respectively.

Last year was great, Keller was the highlight on the topic ‘What is Gospel-centred ministry?‘ or something like that… I’m hoping to sneak in for one day this year, will have to be the first day as I have a wedding to go to, in Haverfordwest of all places, could it be any further away?!

Unexpectedly, Father bought a copy of Keller’s book, came in the post today. So had a read of the introduction. Keller sets out to explain the situation we are at in our culture (a distrust between sceptics and believers) and why we should all honestly and carefully approach the big questions in life. Here’s some initial points…

• Relate to the American context… there’s a lot of talk about the social, political, religious issues in the USA. The UK is very different, but I think we can see our own issues of how the church relates to the culture, and how faith and society can engage.
• Believers and Sceptics need to move beyond the point of denouncing each other to the point of being able to disagree.
• Believers need to be honest about and wrestle with their doubts - “a person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if they have failed over the years to listen patiently to their own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection”
• Atheism is not believed by a consensus of society and is not empirically provable, therefore it takes just as much faith, and has just as many doubts as any other belief.
• Keller concludes the introduction with 3 stories about New Yorkers who came to faith having struggled with suffering, self-image, and the intellectual credibility of Christianity.

Keller seems intellectually robust, philosophically aware, and yet humble, personal and honest. Looks like it’ll be a good read if I get round to it! Having read Mere Christianity the other month, it does seem like the ‘modern’ version, with Keller writing to the next generation than Lewis was.

Here’s a video of Tim Keller on his book tour, giving a talk at a university. I didn’t really listen to the talk (I’d already listened to the individual ones on the Reason for God website) but was more interested in the Q&A afterwards, he’s very gracious in his answers and is clearly very well read - I’d have liked him to come and do a lunchbar at Sussex.

So anyway, a few updates on Tim Keller’s new book, ‘The Reason for God’…

Firstly, TK is on a book tour and he got to speak at Google… they run an event called Authors@Google where authors come in and plug their books… this was supposed to be the best attended ever, with around 150 Google employees coming to listen to TK and do a Q&A. A guy called Justin Buzzard was also there and blogged about it…

Secondly, you can now buy the book in the UK, possibly this is the only, or at least one of the few places that you can get it… and that is from the Good Book Company. It’s the bargain price of £12, or if you have a UCCF Student Card, that’ll be £9! I’m going to get a copy, although I’m secretly hoping this plug along with a little business proposition will persuade GBC to send me a free copy - hey if you don’t ask you don’t get, right?

UPDATE

…also, Tim Challies, ‘The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment‘ is available, same price.

…and Bish thinks I should get a free copy of the book, review copies for bloggers - a good idea!