This post is something new to me. I’ve been reading quite a lot over the past couple months. I’ve read several books and a heap of academic articles for a couple research projects I’m working on, but I’ve also been catching up on some blogs and whatnot. The blogs and online articles help point me in interesting research directions and also keep me grounded in reality while I’m trying to read bad facsimiles. So here’s a couple of those articles online I thought were worth sharing. (This is the kind of thing I would have tweeted in the past.) I’m calling this “Reid’ Recs” for now, but if you’ve got a suggestion for a better name, I’d appreciate it. So here they are in.
- Cameron Shaffer on fixing Protestantism
Cameron Shaffer is a minister in my denomination, the EPC, and I like the way he thinks. Cameron blogs at his website which I highly recommend. This article at Mere Orthodoxy is about restoring the Church through seminary education, but he also talks about broader issues as well. A golden quote:
In times of crisis and decline, the instinct among institutions is to panic and get too creative for their own good. What the church needs is not to be reimagined, but to be restored through a resourcement from its own treasures.
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Mark Jones on Reformed Catholicity
Recently, I’ve run across a couple TR® folks online and in-person, and I’ve been disturbed by (a) their complete misreading of history and (b) their utter confidence in the correctness of their very narrow views. This produces (c) a very uncharitable reading of contemporary writers. That’s not to say there’s nothing I appreciate about these guys, but the approach isn’t really sustainable unless you like purity-spiralling micro-denominations. Jones, in this article from about eight years ago (yes, 2015 was eight years ago), offers a better way: Reformed Catholicity. I’ve been thinking in this direction for years, but a brush-up is always nice. I always feel more sane after hearing respectable people say sane things. Thank you, Mark Jones. -
D.G. Hart on the new Tim Keller Biography
If you’re thinking about reading Hanson’s Keller biography, read Hart’s thoughts first. Sadly, it’s not exactly a glowing review of the book, but Hart also has insights into Kellerism that are really helpful for getting your head around what happened with Redeemer and TGC over the past twenty years. From my reading, it kind of seems like Hanson’s book is a bit hagiographic, and Hart is more balanced. For more on this, I also recommend Hart’s appearance on Presbycast about the topic. (FWIW, I think Hart is totally right.)
Reid's Recs