http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052595 … 0525950494
Table of Contents: http://theologica.blogspot.com/2007/08/ … eller.html
Finally, after months of anticipation, Tim Keller’s new book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, will be released next Thursday, the 14th. I can’t wait … here is how Keller describes it on Redeemer.com:
I’ve been working for some time on a book for the ordinary (which means very sharp) spiritually skeptical New Yorker. Ever since I got to New York nearly two decades ago I’ve wished I had a volume to give people that not only answered objections to Christianity (what has been called ‘apologetics’) but also positively presented the basics of the gospel in an accessible yet substantial way. I had some books that did the one and some that did the other, but only one did both—Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. As you know, I think Lewis’ book is peerless, and foolish would be the author who tried to replace him!
However, the issues in the public discourse around Christianity have become much more complex than they were in the mid and late 20th century. The questions are now not just philosophical (e.g. Is there evidence for God’s existence?) They are also now cultural (Doesn’t strong faith make a multicultural society impossible?), political (Doesn’t orthodox religion undermine freedom?) and personal. Also fifty years ago, when C.S. Lewis was writing, there was general agreement that rational argument and empirical method were the best ways to discover truth. That consensus has vanished. Today there are deep disagreements over how we know things and how certain we can be about anything. Most of the older books presenting Christianity now are only persuasive and even comprehensible to a very narrow range of people.
All this means that there is a great need for new literature that speaks to our time and says, “Christianity makes sense.” I know I’m only one of many who are trying to do this over the next few years. My contribution is slated to be released February 14, 2008, by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Books. Its title is The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. You can find a little more information about it on Amazon.com.
Even though the book is not addressing believers, I still hope it will be a help to the members and friends of Redeemer. It may make it easier to represent your heartfelt beliefs to people you love. That’s my prayer.
It’s funny how every single holiday where Christ is supposed to be at the center, Satan has something planned or some way to try and divert our eyes off of Him and His work on our behalf, and center us rather onto that which is worldly, self-focused or something that isn’t necessarily bad, but that isn’t Christ-centered in any manner. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Lent, all originally intended to give glory to Christ, have been distorted by Satan to take our eyes off the only One who matters, and move our focus to that which profits nothing for the soul, but rather, in all reality, hurts its progress toward godliness that comes only through the righteousness of Christ obtained for us on the cross. With Lent in particular, Satan seems to have devised a two-pronged attack: 1) move people away from Christ through the indulgence of the flesh, and 2) move people away from Christ through works-based religion.
“We must have the full message. . . ‘deliver the whole counsel of God’. . . . It starts with the Law. The Law of God … the demands of a righteous God, the wrath of God. That is the way to bring men and women to conviction; not by modifying the Truth…. We must confront them with the fact that they are men and that they are fallible men, that they are dying men, that they are sinful men, and that they will all have to stand before God at the Bar of Eternal Judgment….And then we must present to them the full-orbed doctrine of the Grace of God in Salvation in Jesus Christ. We must show that no man is saved ‘by the deeds of the Law’, by his own goodness or righteousness, or church membership or anything else, but solely, utterly, entirely by the free gift of God in Jesus Christ His Son. . . . We must preach the full-orbed doctrine leaving nothing out-conviction of sin, the reality of Judgment and Hell, free grace, justification, sanctification, glorification. We must also show that there is a world view in the Bible … that here alone you can understand history-past history, present history, future history. Let us show this great world view, and God’s Eternal purpose…. Let us at the same time be very careful that we are giving it to the whole man … the gospel is not only for a man’s heart, that you start with his head and present Truth to it … Let us show that it is a great message given by God which we in turn pass on to the mind, to the heart, to the will. There is ever this danger of leaving out some part or other of man’s personality… Let us be certain that we address the whole man-his mind, his emotions and his will.”
Listen to the audio above, just five minutes long … And I have to ask myself, what kind of internal, fundamental morality and worldview is this man and those who support him coming from? It is anti-Christ, purely secular, atheistic in nature. And he approves of one of the most deviant, evil forms of abortion there is – Live Birth Abortions. How I pray believers would feel the weight of this issue in relation to the proclamation of Christ and the Gospel. It is not just one issue among the cornucopia of issues out there to mull through during this election. It is the primary issue, more than the economy, more than healthcare, and immigration. Why? Because to give approval to such an awful act is to risk the hardening hand of God coming to this culture to the point where the Gospel no longer has the power to save because the depravity is in too deep, much in the same way God has hardened Israel for a time for rejecting their Messiah (Romans 9-11). It’s not that God can’t save (because we know the Lord is without limits to His power), but that He would choose not to save and allow us to remain in our sin and be lost for eternity. Frightening. That’s the short answer though. I cannot with a good conscience support anyone who is pro-choice, yet Obama is even more radical than most. Abortion is just an unbelievably horrific, morally detestable, wicked, barbaric act that eclipses the goodness, holiness, and glory of Christ ultimately.